Clothed in mystery and lost in uncharted seas, the Spice Islands of the early sixteenth century tantalized European imagination to the point of obsession. As the only place on Earth where grew the "holy trinity" of spices-cloves, nutmeg, and mace-these minuscule islands quickly became a wellspring of international intrigue and personal fortune, occasioning the rise and fall of nations across the globe. It is the history of these islands, their mystique, and the men who tried to tame them, that is the fascinating bounty of THE SCENTS OF EDEN. *"I have found a New World," Franscisco Serrao wrote ecstatically to his friend, Fernao de Magalhaos (aka Ferdinand Magellan).

Well, he didn't really 'find' it; Chinese traders, and later Moors, had known these places and the treacherous routes to the spice islands for hundreds of years. But Serrao was among the first Europeans to come to know these islands well. Serrao got separated from two other ships in a Portugues armada and, more or less by chance, he ended up on Ternate, one of twin volcanic cones, circled by coral reefs and forested with clove trees--'the richest garden the world had ever known.'

Ternate and Tidore, the enchanted spice islands.

I wavered between two and three stars for The Scents of Eden: A History of the Spice Trade, but in the end, the lively portraits of a host of explorers won me over, despite Charles Corn's awkward, uneven and overblown prose style.

Among the astonishing characters you will meet in this book:

* Francis Xavier, 'a tall, strikingly handsome, extroverted and athletic' aristocrat from the Basque country of Northern Spain. With his mentor, Ignatius Loyola, Xavier helped found a new Catholic order, the Society of Jesus. Beginning in 1540, the charming and intrepid Xavier started on 'a lifetime of journeys that would eventually take him thirty-eight thousand miles...all the way to the Spice Islands at the eastern edge of the known world.'

* Sir Walter Raleigh , explorer and courtier, who turned out for his death on the scaffold 'in a fine satin doublet, black taffeta breeches, a black embroidered waistcoat, ash-colored silk stockings, a ruff band, and a finely worked black velvet cloak....Offering his forgiveness and purse to the headsman, he asked to see the axe and felt the well-honed blade. "This is sharp medicine," he said with a smile before resting his head on the curved block, "but it is a sure cure for all diseases."

* Pierre Poivre , whose early life reads like something straight out of The Count of Monte Cristo. Given his name, it seems that Poivre was fated for greatness in the spice trade. Over the course of several voyages between 1751 and 1767, Poivre successfully transplanted smuggled clove and nutmeg saplings to his plantation on Mauritius. Poivre became a true horticulturalist, growing mangos, avocados, mangosteen, durian and other delights on Mauritius. He was also enough of a visionary to insist that seedlings be distributed far and wide through France's colonial possessions. By the 1790s Zanzibar, Madagascar, Martinique and Grenada all had thriving spice gardens. The Dutch spice monopoly was broken.

Content Rating: G with occasional beheadings. Entry for Ternate and Tidor, in my Around-the-World challenge, but Indonesia is so vast that I have to give it more than one book :)

It's hard to believe, but there was a time when pepper was more valuable than gold. Europe craved the novelty of new spices, and explorers from many different countries set out to make their fortunes in the spice trade. Corn relates the history of the spice islands and those who discovered and exploited them in all of their cruel and exciting glory. ( )