I have received many requests from web visitors about where to find additional information about Banda and the history of the spice trade in the East Indies. Below is a list of books and articles you might find interesting.
If you would like to purchase a book one of the books listed, I encourage you to click on the links below, which send you to Amazon.com. 15% of the purchase price of books you buy this way will help fund Yayasan Banda Persada to conduct cultural and natural resource management projects in the Banda Islands.
You can also help us with the purchase of any book, video or electronic product from Amazon.com--not just the ones listed below. Linking to Amazon.com here or via the logo button to the right means that 5% of your purchase price goes to Yayasan Banda Persada--with no additional cost to you.
Thanks for your help, and happy reading!
Two recently published books document the history of European's involvement in the spice trade. The Scents of Eden : A Narrative of the Spice Trade by Charles Corn and Nathaniel's Nutmeg Or, the True and Incredible Adventures of the Spice Trader Who Changed the Course of History by Giles Milton. Both are written for general audiences, though Milton's book, which focuses on the English role in Banda, especially on Pulau Rhun, is arguably the more compelling read. Now out of print, Willard Hanna's book Indonesian Banda published in 1978, remains the only English-language history of the Banda Islands--you can still buy copies in the Muzium Rumah Budaya in Banda Naira, and it has also been privately reprinted as a coffee table book with new photographs, available (as far as I know) only in Banda.
For archaeology in the region, there really hasn't been much done yet, but the Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago by Peter S. Bellwood, reviews much of the work done to date (1997). There is also a chapter on Maluku archaeology by D. Kyle Latinas and Ken Stark in the book edited by Sandra Pannell and Franz Von Benda-Beckmann called Old World Places, New World Problems: Exploring Issues of Resource Management in Eastern Indonesia, which is published by the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies at The Australian National University. It only seems to be available from them via mail order. Included is a fascinating article by Dutch historian Vincent Loth on the environmental changes wrought by the Dutch colonists in Banda after 1621.
There is an interdisciplinary journal about Maluku published by the University of Hawaii called Cakalele, which contains many articles of interest, including some archaeology. You can order issues from them, or may be able to find the journal in a university library. Other academic journals that cover the region include Asian Perspectives (archaeology of the Pacific, out of Hawaii), The Journal of Southeast Asian History (Singapore), and Indonesia (Cornell University)
For more academic, but very well written, histories of the East Indies, I recommend the works of Anthony Reid, including Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450-1680: Expansion and Crisis, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce 1450-1680: The Lands Below the Winds, and the edited volume Southeast Asia in the Early Modern Era: Trade, Power, and Belief. Leonard Andaya's book The World of Maluku: Eastern Indonesia in the Early Modern Period, is also good, though concerned mostly with the clove growing islands to the north of Banda, such as Ternate and Tidore. Any of Charles R. Boxer's works (such as The Portuguese Seaborne Empire 1415-1825, The Dutch Seaborne Empire 1600-1800), though becoming dated, are as yet unmatched scholarship. A comprehensive review of the Indian Ocean trade network (and into Island Southeast Asia) is K.N. Chaudhuri's Asia Before Europe: Economy and Civilization of the Indian Ocean from the Rise of Islam to 1750 , and his soon to be reprinted book The English East India Company: The Study of an Early Joint Stock Company, 1600-1640 is great.
For an inspiring travel account, including a large section on Banda, Ring of Fire: Exploring the Last Remote Places of the World by Lawrence and Lorne Blair can't be beat. It's also available on video, and Volume 1 has some great footage of the Blairs' arrival in Banda on board a pinisi schooner.
E.M.Beekman, a scholar who focuses on Dutch colonial literature, has translated and compiled several fascinating and well illustrated books which include selections from the works of the blind genius 17th century Dutch East India Company merchant and amateur naturalist, Georg Rumphius, who lived in Ambon. His most recent book, The Ambonese Curiosity Cabinet is wonderful, as is a previous compilation, The Poison Tree: Selected Writings of Rumphius of the Natural History of the Indies. Also, any of Beekman's volumes on Dutch colonial literature are excellent.
I highly recommend reading The Malay Archipelago: The Land of the Orang-Utan and the Bird of Paradise, a Narrative of Travel, With Studies of Man and Nature, by Alfred Russell Wallace, if you can find a copy. It has been through several reprints, including New York: Dover (1942), and Oxford University Press (1987), but is now out of print (though I hear it is due to be reprinted soon). The book is a narrative of Alfred Wallace's travels throughout the Indonesian archipelago, where he independently developed a theory of evolution. Great descriptions of wildlife and culture circa 1860.
For more information on spices and the role they have played in human history, I recommend Joanna Hall Brierley's book, Spices: The Story of Indonesia's Spice Trade, which has some nicely reproduced illustrations. Also check out Tastes of Paradise : A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants by Wolfgang Schivelbusch and David Jacobson.
For English language literature related to the Maluku region, try Maria Dermout's novel Ten Thousand Things, an atmospheric Dutch magico-realism tale, set in Ambon. Also recommended are any of Joseph Conrad's East Indies books (Victory, Lord Jim, etc.), for general colonial atmosphere. Somerset Maugham's The Narrow Corner is not one of his best, but it is partly set in Banda (see if you can see through the thin disguise of the name).
For a more comprehensive bibliography, including scholarly works related to my research, see the bibliography of my paper Contact and Colonialism in the Banda Islands.