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herbieridesagain 's review for:
Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire
by Roger Crowley
I’ve been crying out for some non-fiction this year, bizarrely in a year when escapism would seem the best thing to lose yourself in, but I’m missing travelling, so reading about places that I couldn’t go to seemed the next best thing. I dug this out of my kindle, I bought it almost straight away when I got my kindle but hadn’t yet felt the urge to dive in.
I read loads about the age of discovery after my trip to South America almost 20 years ago so thought I would know the broad brush strokes of this but in fact I had barely scratched the service. With a king feeling the tug of destiny, the Portuguese worked their way down the Africa coast, determined to find a route to the source of the spices and silks so coveted in Europe, and to bring an end to the Muslim hold on the trade, as well as ultimately, complete the crusades and destroy Islam. The Portuguese were prodigious recorders and learners and once they had rounded the cape and subdued or entered into uneasy alliances with civilizations they encountered on the African coast. they struck out across the Indian Ocean.
Despite the Muslims and local Indian leaders not wanting them around, the Portuguese worked on smaller vassals, chafing at the bigger rulers, gained a toe hold and were soon sending out a fleet every year, while they aggressively tried to clear the Muslims out of the ocean and explore even further.
Crowley’s scope is epic and was interesting to read, given just how much further the Portuguese went than I realised. Aside from the fearlessness and endurance the Portuguese sailors and conquerors demonstrated, there is little edifying to read about the Portuguese, callous and brutal as they were driven. Their ships, although little suited to the monsoon weather, were much bigger and better armed than the ships plying their trade across the ocean. They pretty much used shock and repressive behaviour to terrify the locals into doing their bidding, if cannons and landings did not work, there was little diplomacy. Still they did not get it all their own way, and there was some irony in the defeats they suffered because of the bloated sense of honour and ‘how things should be done’ from the Portuguese nobles who were part of the crews looking for glory, costing the Portuguese victory multiple times.
Through Crowley’s linear telling of the history two characters stand out, Francisco de Almeida and Afonso de Alburquerque, as with the Spanish conquistadors, it is often a force of personality that allowed these nations to achieve what they did, and these two, operating effectively a world away from their king, interpreting orders as they saw fit, often waiting a year for further instructions or a response to their actions.
So if you are interested in this period, this frenzied time of pushing boundaries and brutal exploration and exploitation then I would recommend Conquerors. Crowley does not justify or excuse the Portuguese, he writes in an entertaining and engaging way what they did and as much as possible why they did it.
(blog review here)
I read loads about the age of discovery after my trip to South America almost 20 years ago so thought I would know the broad brush strokes of this but in fact I had barely scratched the service. With a king feeling the tug of destiny, the Portuguese worked their way down the Africa coast, determined to find a route to the source of the spices and silks so coveted in Europe, and to bring an end to the Muslim hold on the trade, as well as ultimately, complete the crusades and destroy Islam. The Portuguese were prodigious recorders and learners and once they had rounded the cape and subdued or entered into uneasy alliances with civilizations they encountered on the African coast. they struck out across the Indian Ocean.
Despite the Muslims and local Indian leaders not wanting them around, the Portuguese worked on smaller vassals, chafing at the bigger rulers, gained a toe hold and were soon sending out a fleet every year, while they aggressively tried to clear the Muslims out of the ocean and explore even further.
Crowley’s scope is epic and was interesting to read, given just how much further the Portuguese went than I realised. Aside from the fearlessness and endurance the Portuguese sailors and conquerors demonstrated, there is little edifying to read about the Portuguese, callous and brutal as they were driven. Their ships, although little suited to the monsoon weather, were much bigger and better armed than the ships plying their trade across the ocean. They pretty much used shock and repressive behaviour to terrify the locals into doing their bidding, if cannons and landings did not work, there was little diplomacy. Still they did not get it all their own way, and there was some irony in the defeats they suffered because of the bloated sense of honour and ‘how things should be done’ from the Portuguese nobles who were part of the crews looking for glory, costing the Portuguese victory multiple times.
Through Crowley’s linear telling of the history two characters stand out, Francisco de Almeida and Afonso de Alburquerque, as with the Spanish conquistadors, it is often a force of personality that allowed these nations to achieve what they did, and these two, operating effectively a world away from their king, interpreting orders as they saw fit, often waiting a year for further instructions or a response to their actions.
So if you are interested in this period, this frenzied time of pushing boundaries and brutal exploration and exploitation then I would recommend Conquerors. Crowley does not justify or excuse the Portuguese, he writes in an entertaining and engaging way what they did and as much as possible why they did it.
(blog review here)