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tasmanian_bibliophile's review against another edition
5.0
‘How Portugal seized the Indian Ocean and forged the First Global Empire’
Portugal had a population of about one million people at the beginning of the fifteenth century. A tiny country, with an economy which largely depended on fishing and subsistence farming. A country where the kings were too poor to mint their own gold coins. But, as Mr Crowley writes, a country with big aspirations.
‘In August 1415, a Portuguese fleet sailed across the Strait of Gibraltar and stormed the Muslim port of Ceuta, in Morocco, one of the most heavily fortified and strategic strongholds in the whole Mediterranean.’
In Ceuta, the Portuguese saw a glimpse of the wealth of Africa and the Orient, and dared to dream of expansion, of conquering infidels, and of trade like that enjoyed by Genoa and Venice. After Ceuta, Prince Henrique (Prince Henry the Navigator) began to sponsor expeditions down the coast of Africa in search of gold, slaves and spices. The Portuguese also explored inland Africa for the mythical Christian king Prester John. Portugal was also driven by a desire to eradicate Islamic culture, and to establish a Christian empire in the Indian Ocean.
Mr Crowley has drawn on letters and eyewitness accounts to write of Portugal’s rapid rise to power. Some of the major characters portrayed in this account of the Portuguese empire were King Manuel (the Fortunate), João II (the Perfect Prince), the governor Afonso de Albuquerque, and the explorer Vasco da Gama.
How did Portugal achieve such dominance in such a short period? By discovering a route to India around the horn of Africa – achieved by sailing out west from the African coast in order to use the Atlantic winds to sail east around the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean.
‘Though its supremacy lasted little more than a century, Portugal’s achievement was to create the prototype for new and flexible forms of empire, based on mobile sea power, and the paradigm for European expansion. Where it led, the Dutch and the English followed.’
I found Mr Crowley’s account fascinating. While I knew some of the history of Prince Henry the Navigator, of Vasco da Gama and (later) of Ferdinand Magellan, I had not focussed on the detail and the impact of the Portuguese empire. The history of Portuguese exploration is well worth reading: it is an epic tale of courage, endurance and brutality, of skilled navigation, of diplomacy and of religious zealotry. And, supporting the public figures we can name and read about, are many unknown sailors who suffered illness, disease and frequently death. Afonso de Albuquerque became the first European since Alexander the Great to found an Asian empire.
‘The Iberian powers who had carved up the world at Tordesillas in 1494 were conditioned to believe in monopoly trading and the obligation to crusade.’
Portuguese supremacy may have only lasted just over a century, but during that period the Portuguese reached India in 1498, Brazil in 1500, China in 1514 and Japan in 1543.
Note: My thanks to Netgalley and the Random House Publishing Group for an opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
fil's review against another edition
3.0
This is clear and concise, with the amount of information involved it is quite the feat. Crowley strikes a good balance between too little detail and too much. He goes for a chronological approach, switching every so often from the Indian Ocean to Lisbon, Africa and, once or twice, to Brazil. He details the voyages, the Portuguese monarchs, the explorers (and their atrocities) in a detached way, emitting few comments on the treatment of the victims of the Portuguese - as a good historian should, no?
I am familiar with that time period in a very general way, this filled in many blanks and was so easy to read.
I am familiar with that time period in a very general way, this filled in many blanks and was so easy to read.
johnnnnnnnnny's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced
capellan's review against another edition
4.0
Solid and interesting account of Portugal's long quest to find a route past Africa to India, transforming the political and economic life of both Europe and Asia in the process ... the latter in a far more shocking and unpleasant way, as the European proclivity for "exemplary terror" and mass slaughter as a political tool was not previously a significant feature of the region.
I'd be interested to read an account that draws more heavily on the Asian experience of the period, how they felt and reacted to the brutal newcomers.
I'd be interested to read an account that draws more heavily on the Asian experience of the period, how they felt and reacted to the brutal newcomers.
febeyer's review against another edition
4.0
As Roger Crowley explains in "Conquerors", in the early 16th century Portugal, a poor country on the periphery of Europe, came to control trade in the Indian Ocean thanks to bravery, cruelty, navigation skills and cannons. They fought against kings and sultans on the Swahili Coast of Africa and the Malabar Coast of India with no more than 1500 troops at a time. Before they could start fighting they had to find a way to the Indies and did this after eighty years of working their way down the coast of West Africa.
“Behind the Africa initiative lay a very old dream of militant Christendom: that of outflanking Islam, which blocked the way to Jerusalem and the wealth of the East.”
This is a story to rival or even eclipse those Columbus discovering America, Cortes conquering Mexico and Pizarro doing the same in Peru. But the names of Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese captain who made it around Africa, and Alfonso de Albuquerque the man who consolidated the Portuguese presence in India are not so well known. The Indians didn’t manage to get the Portuguese out of Goa until the 1960s! Magellan, the captain who circumvented the world under Spanish patronage, is the only Portuguese explorer the Anglo world taught me about as a kid -- and then I grew up to discover Magellan was killed halfway through the journey! In the Indies, the Portuguese were known as the Franks or Ferengi, the common term for Christian Westerners at the time. The Thais call us Farang to this day.
The Portuguese made it around Africa with the counter-intuitive move of sailing away from the West African coast. This allowed them to catch the winds to take them past the bottom of Africa. This way they discovered Brazil, sailing too far west and landing there by accident. But “Conquerors” does not deal with South America. Once in India, da Gama was surprised to meet with some Castilian speaking Tunisians and find a thriving multicultural civilization. The rulers were generally Hindus but the traders were Muslim, due to the fact that it was taboo for Hindus to eat at sea. The Muslims knew all about Europe and Asia, but the Christian knowledge of the world at the time was limited. Da Gama caused havoc in India before having to sail back before the Monsoon.
After da Gama, Almeida and Albuquerque solidified the Portuguese position. They used diplomacy, threats and terror to achieve their aims. One terror tactic was cutting off the noses ears and hands of Muslim prisoners and then setting them free. Albuquerque was a skilled leader and commander, introducing pike-wielding phalanxes of foot soldiers, much to the disgust of the noblemen who wished for the glory of one on one combat. Albuquerque, following the orders of King Manuel, made a real attempt to control the Red Sea and from there the plan was to launch an attack on Jerusalem, but the failure to capture the city of Aden scuttled these plans. Portuguese pressure in the area was one of the factors in a shift of power in the Muslim world, away from the Mamluk Sultans in Cairo to the Ottomans in Turkey. "Conquerers", however, does not give much information on the politics of the Middle East and India -- which is fair enough, otherwise, this manageable, concise work would balloon out in length. The Venetians, who had controlled the entry of spices into Europe worked with the Muslims to try and get the Portuguese out of the Indian Ocean.
My interest in the Portuguese Empire was sparked by a visit to a Brazilian BBQ in Shanghai in 2007 called Vasco da Gama. "What does Vasco da Gama mean?" I asked. Despite being twenty-eight I had no clue - I’d been to Macau and seen the Portuguese colonial buildings, the azulejos, the calcadas and eaten the Portuguese tarts - but I had no idea how the Portuguese got to Macau. Slowly I've been piecing it all together - it's quite the job as the Portuguese made it to the most far-flung places and often didn't leave much behind.
Crowley maps the Portuguese progression clearly, occasionally I encountered sentences that made no sense or something mentioned in the narrative that would not be explained until much later. This is minor quibbling, Crowley, like Max Hastings, can condense a huge amount of information and turn it into a cohesive narrative. I’d say one of his strengths is relating the tactics of maritime battles. I’m sure he had a lot of help with the translation of original sources, his bibliography looks pretty thorough. Crowley's message is that the Portuguese were cruel and backwards compared with the civilizations of the East, but they were great navigators and incredibly determined and astute with the trump card of superior weaponry.
“Behind the Africa initiative lay a very old dream of militant Christendom: that of outflanking Islam, which blocked the way to Jerusalem and the wealth of the East.”
This is a story to rival or even eclipse those Columbus discovering America, Cortes conquering Mexico and Pizarro doing the same in Peru. But the names of Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese captain who made it around Africa, and Alfonso de Albuquerque the man who consolidated the Portuguese presence in India are not so well known. The Indians didn’t manage to get the Portuguese out of Goa until the 1960s! Magellan, the captain who circumvented the world under Spanish patronage, is the only Portuguese explorer the Anglo world taught me about as a kid -- and then I grew up to discover Magellan was killed halfway through the journey! In the Indies, the Portuguese were known as the Franks or Ferengi, the common term for Christian Westerners at the time. The Thais call us Farang to this day.
The Portuguese made it around Africa with the counter-intuitive move of sailing away from the West African coast. This allowed them to catch the winds to take them past the bottom of Africa. This way they discovered Brazil, sailing too far west and landing there by accident. But “Conquerors” does not deal with South America. Once in India, da Gama was surprised to meet with some Castilian speaking Tunisians and find a thriving multicultural civilization. The rulers were generally Hindus but the traders were Muslim, due to the fact that it was taboo for Hindus to eat at sea. The Muslims knew all about Europe and Asia, but the Christian knowledge of the world at the time was limited. Da Gama caused havoc in India before having to sail back before the Monsoon.
After da Gama, Almeida and Albuquerque solidified the Portuguese position. They used diplomacy, threats and terror to achieve their aims. One terror tactic was cutting off the noses ears and hands of Muslim prisoners and then setting them free. Albuquerque was a skilled leader and commander, introducing pike-wielding phalanxes of foot soldiers, much to the disgust of the noblemen who wished for the glory of one on one combat. Albuquerque, following the orders of King Manuel, made a real attempt to control the Red Sea and from there the plan was to launch an attack on Jerusalem, but the failure to capture the city of Aden scuttled these plans. Portuguese pressure in the area was one of the factors in a shift of power in the Muslim world, away from the Mamluk Sultans in Cairo to the Ottomans in Turkey. "Conquerers", however, does not give much information on the politics of the Middle East and India -- which is fair enough, otherwise, this manageable, concise work would balloon out in length. The Venetians, who had controlled the entry of spices into Europe worked with the Muslims to try and get the Portuguese out of the Indian Ocean.
My interest in the Portuguese Empire was sparked by a visit to a Brazilian BBQ in Shanghai in 2007 called Vasco da Gama. "What does Vasco da Gama mean?" I asked. Despite being twenty-eight I had no clue - I’d been to Macau and seen the Portuguese colonial buildings, the azulejos, the calcadas and eaten the Portuguese tarts - but I had no idea how the Portuguese got to Macau. Slowly I've been piecing it all together - it's quite the job as the Portuguese made it to the most far-flung places and often didn't leave much behind.
Crowley maps the Portuguese progression clearly, occasionally I encountered sentences that made no sense or something mentioned in the narrative that would not be explained until much later. This is minor quibbling, Crowley, like Max Hastings, can condense a huge amount of information and turn it into a cohesive narrative. I’d say one of his strengths is relating the tactics of maritime battles. I’m sure he had a lot of help with the translation of original sources, his bibliography looks pretty thorough. Crowley's message is that the Portuguese were cruel and backwards compared with the civilizations of the East, but they were great navigators and incredibly determined and astute with the trump card of superior weaponry.
mylogicisfuzzy's review
4.0
I somewhat mistakenly thought Conquerors would cover a longer period and include more on economic, social and cultural aspects of Portuguese empire in India but that was my mistake. Crowley clearly sets out exactly what the book is about in the title. Very good read
cody240fc's review
4.0
Crowley is so good. His battle descriptions are always well done and he has a good eye for historical figures with whom he can center his narrative. In this case, Afonso de Albuquerque is a controversial figure who left bloodshed in his wake but successfully established a Portuguese empire in the Indian Ocean. This actually reads more like a biography of Albuquerque rather than a history of Portugal. However, the thirty years covered in this book successfully portrays how Portugal became the great superpower of the 16th century. Highly recommend Crowley’s other works as well.