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No other people in history made such extensive geographical explorations as Portuguese. During the course of the fifteenth century they were the first to reveal to Europe the unknown coast of West Africa, reaching and passing the Cape of Good Hope. They made the first all-water voyage from the West to the East in 1497-99. Cabral touched on Brazil en route to India in 1500. Many of the East Indies islands had been visited by Portuguese ships before Magellan began the first voyage around the world in 1519. Christopher Columbus largely learned his trade as navigator in Portugal. By the end of the sixteenth century the Portuguese flag was flying around the world. The question arises of why the small country of Portugal led the way in exploration in the fifteenth century. This volume provides not only a narrative of the spread of the Portuguese empire but new interpretations and analyses of the history, such as a discussion of how Portuguese power differed in Africa, India, and the Far East, and an analysis of the empire's failure as a business enterprise.

Winner of the Dom João de Castro Prize for Portuguese History This is the story of the first and one of the greatest colonial empires: its birth, apotheosis, and decline. By approaching the history of the Portuguese empire thematically, A. J. R. Russell-Wood is able to pursue ideas and make connections that previously have been constrained by strict chronological approaches. Using the study of movement as a focus, Russell-Wood gains unique insight into the diversity, breadth, and balance between the competing interests and priorities that characterized the Portuguese culture and its expansion spanning four centuries' events on four different continents.

A comprehensive overview and reinterpretation of Portugal's formation and history up to 1807 and of its wide-flung maritime empire.

The four essays in this book examine aspects of Portugal's first overseas empire, the maritime and commercial empire that was founded in the fifteenth century and which, during the sixteenth century extended from Brazil to China.

This book explores and analyzes developments in the military institution, military engagements as well as the larger security environment of (including non-war violence and maritime regions linking to) the Portuguese Empire in India. These developments occurred under the onslaught of the early modern globalization. The research shows that far from being dilapidated or archaic, the Portuguese colonial military there kept up with some developments in technology and organization in a competitive environment. Although the colonial military was not the most important reason in accounting for the survival of the Portuguese Estado da Índia, nor was the military profession the most lucrative occupation, the Portuguese experience gave indication of how a colonial state and society was able to survive against coalescing threats from the position of weakness. Located in the period and geographical region of the wax and waning of the Mughal and Maratha empires, Portuguese India was not necessarily a more violent place than the surrounding territories although resistance to and uprising against the Portuguese was usually underestimated. Beginning from the attempt at political and military centralization (and standardization) in the eighteenth century, the abolition of the army of the Estado da Índia in the nineteenth marked nominally the end of an era that may have a reverberation on the pacifist perception of Goa today.

This study examines the wholesale trade in sugar from Brazil to markets in Europe. The principal market was northwestern Europe, but for much of the time between 1550 and 1630 Portugal was drawn into the conflict between Habsburg Spain and the Dutch Republic. In spite of political obstacles, the trade persisted because it was not subject to monopolies and was relatively lightly regulated and taxed. The investment structure was highly international, as Portugal and northwestern Europe exchanged communities of merchants who were mobile and inter-imperial in both their composition and organization. This conclusion challenges an imperial or mercantilist perspective of the Atlantic economy in its earliest phases.

"On All Saints Day of 1755, the tremors from a magnitude 8.5 earthquake swept furiously from its epicenter in the Atlantic Ocean toward the Iberian Peninsula. Nowhere was it felt more than in Lisbon, then the thriving capital of a great global empire. In a few minutes most of Lisbon was destroyed--but that was only the beginning. A tsunami swept away most of the ruined coast along the Tagus River and carried untold souls out to sea. When fire broke out across the city, the surviving Lisboetas were subject to a firestorm reaching temperatures over 1,832 degrees. Drawing on a wealth of new sources, on modern science (geology did not exist then), and on a sophisticated grasp of Portuguese history, Molesky gives us the definitive account of the destruction, of history's first international relief effort, and of the dampening effects these events had on the optimistic spirit of the Enlightenment"--Provided by pulisher.

From the divine right of kings to the political philosophies of writers such as Machiavelli, the medieval city-states to the unification of Spain, Daniel Waley and Peter Denley focus on the growing power of the state to illuminate changing political ideas in Europe between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. Spanning the entire continent and beyond, and using contemporary voices wherever possible, the authors include substantial sections on economics, religion, and art, and how developments in these areas fed into and were influenced by the transformation of political thinking. The new edition takes the narrative beyond the confines of western Europe with chapters on East Central Europe and the teutonic knights, and the Portuguese expansion across the Atlantic. The third edition of this classic introduction to the period includes even greater use of contemporary voices, full reading lists, and new chapters on East Central Europe and Portuguese exploration. Suitable as an introductory text for undergraduate courses in Medieval Studies and Medieval European History.