In 1616, an English adventurer, Nathaniel Courthope, stepped ashore on a remote island in the East Indies on a secret mission - to persuade the islanders of Run to grant a monopoly to England over their nutmeg, a fabulously valuable spice in Europe. This infuriated the Dutch, who were determined to control the world's nutmeg supply. For five years Courthope and his band of thirty men were besieged by a force one hundred times greater - and his heroism set in motion the events that led to the founding of Manhattan, the greatest city on earth. A beautifully told adventure story and a fascinating depiction of exploration in the seventeenth century, NATHANIEL'S NUTMEG sheds a remarkable light on history.

During 200 years the East India Company grew from a loose association of Elizabethan tradesmen into "the grandest society of merchants in the universe". As a commercial enterprise it came to control half the world's trade and as a political entity it administered an embryonic empire. Without it there would have been no British India and no British Empire. In a tapestry ranging from Southern Africa to north-west America, and from the reign of Elizabeth I to that of Victoria, bizarre locations and roguish personality abound. From Bombay to Singapore and Hong Kong the political geography of today is, in some respects, the result of the Company. This book looks at the history of the East India Company.

Kazuko Kuramoto was born and raised in Dairen, Manchuria, in 1927, at the peak of Japanese expansionism in Asia. Dairen (Port Arthur) was an important colonial outpost on the Liaotung Peninsula; the train lines established by Russia and taken over by the Japanese, ended there. When Kuramoto's grandfather arrived in Dairen as a member of the Japanese police force shortly after the end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, the family's belief in Japanese supremacy and its "divine" mission to "save" Asia from Western imperialists was firmly in place. As a third-generation colonist, the seventeen-year-old Kuramoto readily joined the Red Cross Nurse Corps in 1944 to aid in the war effort and in her country's sacred cause. A year later, her family listened to the emperor's radio broadcast ". . . we shall have to endure the unendurable, to suffer the insufferable . . . unconditional surrender."
Manchurian Legacy is the story of the family's life in Dairen, their survival as a forgotten people during the battle to reclaim Manchuria waged by Russia, China, and Korea, and their subsequent repatriation to a devastated Japan. Kuramoto describes a culture based on the unthinking oppression of the colonized by the colonizer. And, because Manchuria was, in essence, a Japanese frontier, the Kuramotos lived a freer and more luxurious life than they would have in Japan-one relatively unscathed by the war until after the surrender.
As a commentator Kuramoto explores her culture both from the inside, subjectively, and from the outside, objectively. Her memoirs describe her coming of age in a colonial society, her family's experiences in war-torn Manchuria, and her "homecoming" to Japan-where she had never been-just as Japan is engaged in its own cultural upheaval.
满洲遗产：日本殖民者回忆录
仓本和子出生于大连，满洲，在1927年，在日本在亚洲的扩张高峰。大连旅顺口及邻近的重要辽东半岛上的殖民据点，设立的铁路线是俄罗斯和日本采取有超过结束。当藏本的祖父抵达大连后不久，俄结束日本在1905年战争中，家庭在日本的优势和它的“神圣”信念使命作为日本警察队的成员，“拯救”从西方帝国主义在亚洲的坚定地点。作为第三代的殖民地，在17岁的仓本随时在1944年加入红十字会护士团，以帮助在战争中的努力和在她的国家的神圣事业。一年后，她的家人听到皇帝宣布在电台播出的“我们将不得不承受无法忍受，忍受难以忍受的。” 日本宣布无条件投降。满遗产是家庭在大连生活的故事，他们为在战斗中被遗忘的俄罗斯人进行的生存收回满洲，中国国民党和中国共产党，并随后将其遣返满目疮痍的日本。 仓本描述了没有头脑的压迫为基础的文化殖民地的殖民者。 而且，由于东北，实际上，日本的前沿，她的家庭生活比更加自由和更加豪华的生活将在日本-一个相对的投降后才战争毫发无损。作为一个评论员探讨仓本从内部，主观她的文化，并从外部，客观，她的回忆录中描述了她的时代的来临，在一个殖民地的社会，她家人的经历战争蹂躏的满洲，和她的“回归颂”她从来没有-正如日本从事自己的文化动荡。

Captive American Indian Manteo was returned to his homeland as Governor, a gamble that resulted in the first English settlement in the New World. Using first-hand accounts, this book tells the full story and its extraordinary twist.