This is a wonderful book from an Indian history point of view. Especially for most of us who learnt history in our textbooks which are too basic and do not get the bigger picture nor the details of how our history played out in reality.

If you want to know more about what happened in Calicut you should follow this book up with a visit to a blog called Historical Alleys. You can google and find it. It has stories of many of the major and minor playerson the Indian coast during the Portuguese and Dutch days.