Giles Milton

Popular history about the first 60 years of the honourable East India Company, focusing on the Dutch-English conflict over supremacy in the spice trade originating from the Banda islands.

The title is a misnomer. The said Nathaniel (Courthope) only played a minor (and ineffectual, albeit heroic) role in the struggle over Run island (one of the smallest of the six Banda spice islands). In the end the writer makes a plea for celebrating Nathaniel for his heroic, but futile, resistance to Dutch show more supremacy over Run island and its inhabitants, because ultimately an exchange was agreed between New Amsterdam (present-day New York) and Run island. This exchange supposedly gave the British the better end of the deal (if we ignore the subsequent American war of Independence and loss of British suzerainty over their American colonies). This is a typical case of imposing logics that only make sense with hindsight, but hardly influenced the exchange at the time.

Moreover, Milton presents Nathaniel’s struggle as one of British loftiness over crude Dutch extractionism – civilization over suppression. While such a view is refreshing, when contrasted with the dominant narrative on the Dutch East India Company (VOC), it is equally misleading – the British Empire was hardly less dominating or extractionist than its Dutch version. And ultimately New York and its inhabitants rose against British Imperialism in the name of freedom and civilization. So in the long run Milton’s argument backfires.

Yet, the fact that Courthope struck a reasonable deal with the inhabitants of Run stands. What we do not know, but can reasonably suppose, is that the more inclusive and autonomous aspects of that deal would have fallen victim to the God of colonial Greed in the long run.

What I ultimately take from this book, is a better understanding of the initial failure of the East India Company, which almost ceased to exist in 1657 (one hundred years before the unexpected British victory at Plassey, Bengal, which secured the ascent of the British Raj). Ultimately it was the backing of King Charles II and an extension of the mandate of the East India Company, to include local rule, military empowerment and the use of force, that explain its success after 1657 (one could argue that the British finally managed to copy the lethal mix of powers that made the Dutch East India Company so successful). In light of these changes, one may wonder whether the inhabitants of Run would have been better off under British rule. Milton avoids such painful, reflective questions. Rather than probing the viciousness of both the Dutch and British colonial projects, Milton prefers a gung-ho, white-supremacist adventure narrative. Go and read Amitav Ghosh for a very different narrative on the Nutmeg’s curse! show less

One of the major pop-cultural phenomena of the 1970s was James Clavell's novel Shogun, which told the story of an English seaman marooned in 15th century Japan. The novel spawned a television mini-series, recently re-made for the streaming generation; the story had colour, spectacle, and (for a Western audience) exoticism. It was also notable for making few concessions to audience comprehension, in that a lot of the Japanese dialogue was untranslated, putting many viewers in the same show more position as the central character, Blackthorne, of understanding little and being forced to rely on possibly unreliable third-party translators. Only slowly do we begin to comprehend what is happening to Blackthorne and those around him.

The surprise to many was that this story was essentially true. In 1598, a Dutch trading fleet recruited one William Adams, an experienced pilot (navigator) from Deptford, for a trade mission to the East Indies. The inspiration was the tales of vast riches to be made in trade with lands both known and unknown, especially "the Japans" which were the subject of a number of tantalisingly vague travellers' tales. The fleet sailed southwards, mainly keeping to the coast of the African continent; then struck out across the South Atlantic for the Straits of Magellan. They then turned north-westwards for Hawaii and then continued westwards across the Pacific. By this time, the fleet of five ships had been reduced to one, with only 25 crew remaining, and those racked with thirst, hunger and disease. On 12th April 1600, the one remaining ship fetched up off the coast of the southern Japanese island of Kyushu.

By now the only remaining senior partner in the original enterprise, William Adams stepped into a society and a political situation of which he knew nothing. What European trade there was with Japan was governed mainly by the Portuguese, who had reached Japan from the west some forty years earlier, but who maintained a monopoly on trade, in part encouraged by the Catholic Church. When the arrival of a Dutch ship became known to the effective ruler of Japan, the warlord Tokugawa Ieyasu, his interest was piqued. He was a shrewd man who wated to know more about the world outside Japan; he was also keen to exploit any advantage than newcomers might give him in the struggle for power in Japan. Days after his third meeting with Adams, Ieyasu set out at the head of his army to meet his rival at what was to become the Battle of Sekigahara, where he was victorious and secured his position as undisputed ruler of Japan. On finding that the Dutch ship and its crew were considered heretics and enemies by the Portuguese, he became even more interested. For his part, William Adams was impressed by the sophistication of Japanese society and the power exercised by Ieyasu. A close working relationship soon developed.

Giles Milton's book tells the story of William Adams, his relationship with Ieyasu, and his role in the development of trade between England and Japan. The main events of the first part if the story closely echo those of Clavell's novel, although a number of the rest of the crew also found themselves able to exploit their knowledge and trade acumen. Adams, meanwhile, became so valuable to Ieyasu that he was accorded the status of hatamoto and was granted estates and privileges in return for his knowledge, especially of shipbuilding.

Adams stayed in Japan for the rest of his life, though he worked closely with later English and Dutch traders and undertook a number of trade voyages to China and around the East Indies. Giles Milton's book tells the story of how that trading relationship developed, and then faded as antagonisms between the English and Dutch away from Japan influenced trade and relations with Ieyasu - now declared Shogun, or 'military dictator' - and his successor, his son Hidetada. These difficulties eventually led, after Adams' death, to Hidetada closing Japan to external trade. The book tells the story of these trade expeditions, as well as setting voyages to Japan in their historical perspective.

The text flows easily, and Milton paints a fascinating picture as Europeans first encounter the (to them) exotic societies of Japan and contrast it with their own. Whilst there were plenty of sailors who fully demonstrated the traditional seafarers' rumbustiousness and licentiousness, there were also others who saw the need to meet Japan on its own terms; William Adams was merely the first of these, and the most successful. Milton has done his research well, and draws on many contemporary sources.

If I have one criticism of the text, it is that we are mainly told the story from the point of view of the traders, and so their initial impressions of encounters with the Japanese display their ignorance of what they are seeing and their implications. For readers with even a slight knowledge of medieval Japan, this is occasionally restricting; we are often ahead of those telling the story. Equally, illustrations are mainly contemporary woodcuts, and so many of those produced by European artists employ a lot of imagination, and often depict the Japanese as Europeans, because (obviously) the artists were not there. Perhaps the one real irritant, though, is the way in which the illustrations are captioned with almost verbatim extracts from the text that the reader has just read.

But these are minor irritants. The book itself is a fascinating look at a world now long gone, but which has a lot of echoes down to our own time. show less

The ungentlemanly warfare in Giles Milton’s history consists of “murder, sabotage, and subversion” carried out by “undercover men, spies, and saboteurs” during WWII. That species of warfare took its inspiration from Sinn Fein and T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia), and the un-gentlemen so engaged, “if caught, would be neither acknowledged nor defended by their government.” Start playing that Lalo Schifrin theme music and recite: “The Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your show more actions.”

Those involved were a different breed. Men willing to do the worst things to serve a cause can be men who like doing the worst things. The ministry absolutely had ungentlemanly men among its better sorts to carry out the ungentlemanly plans, plans which seem to have excited opposition rather than support from regular officers and ministers. Winston Churchill backed the enterprise, however, so traditionalists just had to accept it.

Before jumping into the murder and sabotage and subversion, the author begins with the technical development efforts supporting these activities. New weaponry was needed and the agents received special training for the new kind of fighting. This first part of the book, though quite interesting to me, is naturally less intense than the mission accounts. Action-addicted readers might get antsy. Stick with it, though, and the goods will be delivered. show less

Incredibly detailed research of the pivotal period after WW2, when the western allies found themselves confronted by the Russians in Berlin. The book tells how the Russians attempted to drive a wedge between the allies and seize control of all of Berlin, with puppet leaders in thrall to Moscow. This culminated in the Berlin blockade (and subsequent airlift), which the Russians believed would bring the allies to their knees and enable Russia to take control of all Berlin. Instead it show more spectacularly backfired and ultimately lead to German reunification many years later. The author manages to inject humour and down to earth vignettes of life in Berlin during these challenging times. show less