trading areas dramatically expanded to the shores of Asia, and a long period of harsh competition set the East India Companies …

Europe, the VOC earned healthy margins by upplying a competitive red dyestuff to the continent's burgeoning textile industry …. In Asia, sappanwood contributed to the VOC's intra-Asian trade system as a commodity useful in acquiring more lucrative …

enlightened tolerance of its people. The 'pashas' - merchants and travelers from Europe - discovered an Islamic world that was …