Spice Islands Forts: An illustrated history and catalogue

Priceless nutmeg and cloves were for millennia only found on a scattering of active volcanos rearing up from equatorial seas at the far edge of the world; the Spice Islands of today's Indonesia.

The Portuguese were the first Europeans to put them on the world map in 1512. To warn off the Spanish, they soon built the first Spice Islands fort. The profits were immense for whoever controlled these Spiceries, and a century of conflict and fort building followed as local sultanates, the Portugues...