Breve Historia Contemporanea de Costa Rica (Contemporary History of Costa Rica) Book

This book reminds me of Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded by Simon Winchester. An interesting book about something (major) happened in Indonesia but the author decided that the readers will be happy with many side stories that detract from the main topic.

I had the wrong expectation when I bought this book since I was expecting an account of the colonization of Banda Islands and the struggle of the natives. Instead, this book dedicates far more pages for events NOT in Banda but somewhere else like the Mughal Empire in India, Banten, the North Pole, and tons and tons of shipwrecks, dead sailors and other calamities in the vast ocean.

Even Nathaniel himself - the man in the title - was only discussed after around 60% of the book, still with many going off on a tangent afterward. His one-time (!) role as a besieged commander while very heroic and all, was not very instrumental in deciding the fate of the islands. With such a long history during the years of the colonization, everything was decided in the negotiation rooms in London and The Hague and who knows where else. It's not his nutmeg - figuratively and literally - and the author/editor/whoever just did not write a very convincing thesis on why he chose that title.

I think the Banda portion was just okay. As expected, the colonials were cruel (the Dutch even more so, argued Mr. Milton). Combining the forces of paper agreement, guns, ships, and forts, both the English and the Dutch tricked and forced the hands of the natives to sell them monopoly rights for the nutmeg. There were quite lengthy accounts of various fighting between the English and the Dutch over controls of these islands (and some other places including a very long tale about a riot in Java. Some of which involved siege warfare and some crazy torturings (the Dutch were pretty ruthless even to fellow Europeans). Of course, we are also informed about the killings and slavery of the Bandanese, courtesy of both the VOC and the infamous governor general of the East Indie JP Coen, whose big statue can still be found in a big museum in Jakarta instead of being blasted to smithereens for committing genocide.

I wished there were more about the Breda Treaty, where the Dutch traded with the English the island of Manhattan (yes, that one in New York) with Rhun Island. However, it was just a few pages at the end, more like an afterthought.

The author also uses many weird spellings for cities and places. Banten is Bantam, Aceh is Achin, Mollucas is Molucos, Ambon is Amboyna, and he also misspelled Indonesian first vice president name, Hatta became Hatti. Was it so hard to do some research, Mr. Milton? And the boat journey from Neira to Rhun is not treacherous (I've been there using a rickety inter-island transport) since in the ocean, everything depends on the season and tides. I remember a crystal clear water, looks like glass, even.

I want to give this book one star due to those shortcomings but since there are not many books dedicated for this part of Indonesia's history I decided to cut the author some slack. Also, because there were some amusing factoids like this one about Banten: "It was infamous in the East for its loose women and lax morals and an air of profligacy". LOL. Sorry, you'll know why it's funny if you live in Indonesia.

Anyway, this is view of Rhun from a nearby islet:
Gorgeous, right? The smell of nutmeg is still there, you know. One can see the nutmeg trees even though there are not as many as they used to be. In front of their houses, the inhabitants spread the fruit's mace to be sun-dried. It was now a sleepy island, forgotten. The people are poor and being so far away from the provincial capital (let alone the country's) does not help with their condition. Tourism is rising but mostly for divers and less for history buffs (except for the laudable Sahabat Museum community who does regular trips there). I sincerely wish more Indonesians want to come there. We need to be constantly reminded that there are some things that should never fade from our memory as a nation, including the blood price we paid and are still paying for being rich with natural resources.