One of the most significant and vital eras in the history of ethnobotany coincided with the spice trade during the European Age of Discovery, which began in the 15th century with the Portuguese exploration of Africa and wound down in the late 17th century when cultivation of spices expanded throughout the tropical world. Nonetheless, the trade in spices by Arab, Chinese, and Indian merchants commenced long before European involvement. Botanical bounty like cinnamon (Cinnamomum spp., Lauraceae), cloves (Syzygium aromaticum, Myrtaceae), nutmeg (Myristica fragrans, Myristicaceae), and black pepper (Piper nigrum, Piperaceae) were moving from Southeast Asia and India to the Middle East long before the early 1400s when Prince Henry the Navigator (1394–1460) kickstarted Portuguese exploration of tropical regions. The spice trade changed the world in many fundamental areas, including agriculture, cartography, navigation, religion, spycraft, and even major aspects of capitalism as we know it. As a 1998 article in The Economist noted: “If history’s modern age has a beginning, [the spice trade] is it…. To support this expansion [into tropical regions, Europe’s] merchant classes would invent new forms of commercial credit and the first great corporations, vital parts of capitalism’s operating system, and spread their trading networks across the seven seas.”1 Charles Corn, in his excellent 1999 book The Scents of Eden: A History of the Spice Trade (Kodansha America, Inc.), echoed these sentiments: “The Spice Trade was the lifeblood of civilization and brought with it a tide of wealth sweeping through a still largely barbaric Europe. Literally worth their weight in gold, the cloves, nutmeg, mace [derived from nutmeg], cinnamon, ginger [Zingiber officinale, Zingiberaceae] and [black] pepper spawned a new age of revolutionary economics based on credit, the rise of a rudimentary banking system, and ultimately free enterprise.”2 It is difficult to overemphasize the importance of spices and the spice trade in the ancient world. In the words of my late colleague Frederic Rosengarten Jr. (1916–1998), spice grower and historian, in his 1969 classic The Book of Spices (Livingston Publishing Company)3: As we look back across some five thousand years of recorded history, we begin to grasp the pivotal part that spices have played in the development of modern civilization. In an epoch where Europe knew nothing of sugar, tea [Camellia sinensis, Theaceae], coffee [Coffea spp., Rubiaceae], chocolate [from cacao; Theobroma cacao, Malvaceae], potatoes [Solanum tuberosum, Solanaceae], citrus fruits [Citrus spp., Rutaceae], or tobacco [Nicotiana spp., Solanaceae], to say nothing of plumbing or refrigeration, Oriental spices supplied flavor and piquancy for food and drink and fragrant aromas to mask a multitude of unpleasant odors. So useful, indeed indispensable, were spices, both politically and economically, that kings sent expeditions in search of them, merchants risked life and fortune to trade in them, wars were fought over them, whole populations were enslaved, the globe was explored, and such far reaching changes as the Renaissance were brought about by the restless, ruthless competition. Spices played many roles in the ancient world. As today, they were culinary staples, enhancing flavors in bland and monotonous diets. Unlike today, they were often used to mask the flavor of foods that were past their prime, a necessity in an age without refrigeration. Spices were a mainstay of ancient medicine for a comparable reason: They harbor essential oils and compounds that can inhibit the growth of bacteria and other microorganisms. The importance of the antimicrobial effects of spices — an essential benefit in a world without the antibiotics that are available now — is often downplayed or overlooked in histories of the spice trade. Their fragrances also were valued for what we would now term aromatherapy. In an epoch where soaps and perfumes were either unavailable or the province of the very wealthy, sweet-smelling spices were in great demand. Both these properties — antimicrobial and aromatic — were undoubtedly reasons that spices served as key commodities in Egyptian mummification rituals. Ancient Jewish traditions also widely employed plant products. Spices like cinnamon, for example, were used to make anointing oils and burned as incense in the Temple in Jerusalem. For the Romans, spices ranked among the most highly prized commodities in the Eternal City. The historian and naturalist Pliny the Elder (ca. 23–79 CE) famously criticized the empire’s obsession with spices, complaining that Rome wasted enormous sums on frivolous foreign luxuries. His remarks highlighted a larger concern about the drain of wealth to Asia in exchange for spices and other commodities. So much wealth flowed east that gold and silver Roman coins are still occasionally found in India, particularly in the south near the Malabar Coast where black pepper originated. Spices have loomed large in both history and religion for thousands of years. Muhammad, the founder of Islam, was a spice merchant by profession. In the Book of Genesis, Joseph is sold to Arabian spice traders who were headed to Egypt, foreshadowing the Jews’ eventual return to Israel (the Exodus) from the land of the Pharaohs. And the Three Wise Men who visited the infant Jesus were likely Persian spice merchants. Much of the early trade in spices until the mid-15th century was by the overland route commonly called the Silk Road. Arab merchants served as middlemen, connecting tropical Asian plant products with Middle Eastern and European markets. Venice served as the entrepôt (intermediate place of trade) for these goods coming from the East. Venice’s wealth, power, and cultural flowering can be attributed in large part to the substantial profits that the spice trade generated. But as demand increased while supplies did not, spice prices continued to rise, creating a strong economic incentive for Europeans to obtain direct access to the spice lands. One relatively obvious route was to sail east, thereby circumventing the land routes controlled by the Arabs. Certainly, there already existed maritime trade in spices and other commodities, but this was relatively limited in geographic scope, mostly in the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. None of these merchants had sailed across either the Atlantic or the Pacific oceans. For western Europeans, a large obstacle blocked access to the Moluccas (the “Spice Islands”): the continent of Africa. For those crowns and explorers willing to entertain the speculation that the world was round, another route to the lands of spice presented itself: sailing west. The Spaniards led the way when Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) headed west to the Americas in 1492. Six years later, the Portuguese blazed their own oceanic trail in the opposite direction, with Vasco da Gama (ca. 1460–1524) sailing south, rounding the African Cape of Good Hope, and continuing east to India.* The true significance of these two voyages became clearer in 1522, when Ferdinand Magellan’s (ca. 1480–1521) crew completed the first circumnavigation of the globe. This harsh and brutal three-year journey resulted in the death of the commander and the demise of most of the ship’s sailors: Only 18 of the original 270 who embarked with Magellan in 1519 returned to Spain in 1522, a survival rate of less than 7%. The rivalry between Spain and Portugal as they raced across the oceans to take control of the global spice trade, especially that of cloves, mace, and nutmeg, forms the basis of Roger Crowley’s wonderful new book Spice: The 16th-Century Contest That Shaped the Modern World. The book is a sort of narrative synecdoche, detailing a two-century period to tell a broader story of a trade that spanned 2,000 years. Spice is a rollicking good read. Crowley, a historian and author whose specialty is maritime history, is a gifted storyteller. His detailed account of Magellan’s voyage is terrifying enough to make any sailor question whether to leave dry land. He also brings to life not only well-known figures like da Gama and Magellan but also the anticolonial Philippine Chieftain Lapulapu and the extraordinary Juan Sebastián Elcano (ca. 1486–1526), who successfully took command of the expedition when Magellan was killed, only to perish himself when he tempted fate by attempting a second voyage around the globe merely four years after his return to Spain. What makes this book so intriguing is that it brims with extraordinary characters and stories of arrogance, betrayal, bravery, cannibalism, idealism, and evil. In Crowley’s telling, the spice trade is a cautionary tale in which history, exploration, culture, and commerce clash. Indigenous peoples also suffer greatly in the wake of a pattern of colonialist extractivism that endures through today. Quoting The Economist once more: “In the war for spices, Portuguese and Spanish explorers killed locals, and each other, with gusto.”4 What transpired in Magellan’s fleet is a microcosm of the intercultural confusion, violence, and treachery that threads through the book. Born in Portugal, Magellan sailed as a representative of the King of Spain. Some three-quarters of his sailors were Spanish, and another 15% were Portuguese. Neither nationality seemed to have trusted the other, and elements of both seem to have distrusted Magellan. After a mutiny, several sailors were executed while others were marooned on an island and left to die. Rivalries intensified after Magellan was killed in the Philippines in 1521, leading to more dissension and misery as his remaining shipmates sailed on. The Indigenous peoples, meanwhile, were not helpless bystanders. Magellan was killed in battle after taking sides in a confrontation between local groups. After his death, some of the fleet’s surviving leaders were invited to a feast supposedly given in their honor by a different local chief. There, many of the Europeans were massacred by their hosts. More often, though, when European steel was pitted against local wooden spears and arrows, the outcome was devastating for the Indigenous peoples. Time after time, as Crowley writes, “Trade and conquest went hand in hand.” Crowley opens the book by detailing the early history of the spice trade, emphasizing the aforementioned Silk Road route from Southeast Asia to the Middle East and beyond. He then charts the Portuguese rise to power, of which the Magellan voyage is a dramatic highlight. Holland enters the picture in the guise of the ruthless Dutch East India Company as the two European powers battled over nutmeg and mace from the Moluccas, to the detriment of the Indigenous peoples and forests of this Asian archipelago. Finally, the Spanish Empire appears on the scene, in the form of the Manila galleon trading ships, which established regular maritime connections between Asia (primarily the Philippines) and the Americas (primarily Mexico), and then on to Europe (Spain). Crowley concludes by charting the decline of the spice monopoly as the expanding European presence in Asia, along with competition and cultivation of spices in other tropical colonies, increased supply while reducing demand. Finally, as an ethnobotanist, I note that Crowley’s book features lots of “ethno” but very little botany. This is to be expected: the author is a maritime historian, so it comes as no surprise that this text focuses more on ships’ captains, capstans, and crow’s nests than on cloves — more mizzen masts than mace. Nonetheless, Crowley’s writing is clear and engrossing, and the history is accurate and compelling. I recommend this book without reservation. Readers who want a more global perspective with a heavier dose of botany, however, would do well to seek out Rosengarten’s The Book of Spices or Gary Nabhan’s Cumin, Camels, and Caravans: A Spice Odyssey (University of California Press, 2014), an often-overlooked gem. As a further complement to Crowley’s book, which focuses so heavily on the Portuguese role in the spice trade, I also recommend Nathaniel’s Nutmeg: Or, the True and Incredible Adventures of the Spice Trader Who Changed the Course of History by Giles Milton (Hodder & Stoughton, 1999), which further details the role of the Dutch, who not only replaced the Iberians in the Spice Islands but also unfortunately proved much more brutal.   Mark J. Plotkin, PhD, LHD, is an ethnobotanist, president of the Amazon Conservation Team (www.amazonteam.org), and host of the popular podcast “Plants of the Gods: Hallucinogens, Healing, Culture and Conservation.” * When da Gama first disembarked in India, he is said to have proclaimed, “For Christ and Spices!” This must have come as a surprise to the local Christians whose community had been founded by Saint Thomas the Apostle in the year 52 CE — more than 300 years before Christianity became fully rooted in da Gama’s home country of Portugal. Da Gama’s declaration encapsulates the idealism, ignorance, religious fanaticism, and greed of the European spice seekers.