7 April, 2020
The authors of this well researched book, Des Alwi, a native of Banda Island in the Indonesian Moluccan Islands, and Willard Hanna, an American, with years of experience in East and Southeast Asia devoted this work to the early period of European contact and conquest of this spice rich region. Ternate and Tidore and Banda Islands were the original and exclusive sources of the world supply of prime cloves and the “golden fruit”, a name applied to nutmeg, and were more luring than the gold of the Aztecs and Incas. The in country lives of the authors creates a graphic work of this significant period of history