Innes lecture 2025

'Following the Pepper: Black Berries, Asian Trade and European Empires.'

It's hard to imagine a world without pepper. It's such a common spice in our kitchens, but there's a lot we don't know about it. Pepper is the most widely used spice in the world, but its widespread use was not always certain or predictable. The way pepper was harvested, and traded to meet growing demand helped shape the plantation economy. Originally from southern India, pepper had spread to Indonesia by the time Europeans began colonizing. From there, it continued to expand.

The combination of the plantation economy and European colonization played a huge role in shaping the modern world. Looking at how pepper was cultivated and traded, reveals different ecologies, trade networks, labour systems, and cultural influences. While Europeans played a part in globalising pepper, they weren't the only ones involved in its trade. Its widespread availability came about through a mix of cultural exchanges.

This lecture follows pepper’s journey from its origins in South India, across the Indian Ocean, and through many different hands, before the Portuguese sought to take control of it. It uses historical research on pepper to create a more flexible understanding of how environmental changes unfolded. By recognising how the exploitation of nature happened in specific contexts and in different ways, we might find better ways to engage with the environment today.

This year's speaker 

 Sujit Sivasundaram is Professor of World History at the University of Cambridge and Fellow in History at Gonville and Caius College. His last book was 'Waves Across the South: A New History of Revolution and Empire' (2020), which won both the British Academy Book Prize and the Jerry Bentley Prize for World History. He is currently writing an environmental history of the Indian ocean world, working from natural elements that are often misplaced in historical understanding. He is a Fellow of the British Academy.

Tea and biscuits 6.00, lecture begins at 6.30

The Innes lecture is generously supported by the John Innes Foundation