Spices, Scents and Silk : Catalysts of World Trade (eBook)

James F. Hancock is a University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University. He received his BS in Biology from Baldwin Wallace College (Berea, Ohio), a MS in Botany at Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) and a Ph.D. in Genetics at the University of California, Davis. After a short stint in the Biology Department at the University of South Carolina, he moved to Michigan State University (MSU) as an assistant professor of Horticulture, where he was for over thirty years, being promoted to Professor in 1986. He was the Director of the Plant Breeding and Genetics Program at MSU from 2004 to 2009. The emphasis of his research has been on the breeding and genetics of blueberries and strawberries, and he has published prodigiously in these areas. His previous books have been "The Strawberry", "The Blueberry" (with Jorge Retamales), "Plantation Crops: Power and Plunder, Evolution and Exploitation" and "Plant Evolution and the Origin of Crop Species". He has also edited "Temperate Fruit Crop Genetics: Germplasm to Genomics", and "Environmental Biosafety" (with Rebecca Grumet, Karim Maredia and Cholani Weebadde). He is fellow of the American Society for Horticultural Science, Wilder medal recipient of the American Pomological Society, a former Fulbright Fellow to Chile and received the Technology Transfer Achievement Award from the Innovation Center of MSU for his blueberry cultivar releases.

James Hancock, Professor Emeritus, Department of Horticulture, Michigan State University, pinpoints the world's leading spices used since antiquity as frankincense, myrrh, cinnamon, pepper, ginger, cloves, saffron, nutmeg, and mace. Hancock divided this broad subject into readable stand-alone chapters, each with its own list of references,
eliminating a need to search through a long alphabetical bibliography at the end of the book. Hancock traces the quest for profits from trade in spices, scents, and silks that motivated ancient peoples to explore the world in search of exotic luxuries from distant lands, while competing for long-distance trade dominance. There is plenty here to satisfy general readers with an interest in the global economics of the spice trade through history.