This fascinating history reassesses the consequences of Portugal's flourishing private trade with Asia, including increased tensions between the growing urban merchant class and the still-dominant landed aristocracy. James C. Boyajian shows how Portuguese-Asian commerce formed part of a global trading network that linked not only Europe and Asia but also—for the first time—Asia, West Africa, Brazil, and Spanish America. He also argues that, contrary to previous scholarly opinion, nearly half of the Portuguese-Asian trade was controlled by New Christians—descendants of Iberian Jews forcibly converted to Christianity in the 1490s.
"The inquiry ends with the collapse of the Portuguese presence in Asia which began with the restoration of Portuguese independence and the fall of Malacca in 1641."--BOOK JACKET.
Featuring updates and revisions that reflect recent historiography, this new edition of The Portuguese Empire in Asia 1500-1700 presents a comprehensive overview of Portuguese imperial history that considers Asian and European perspectives. Features an argument-driven history with a clear chronological structure Considers the latest developments in English, French, and Portuguese historiography Offers a balanced view in a divisive area of historical study Includes updated Glossary and Guide to Further Reading
European traders first appeared in India at the end of the fifteenth century and began exporting goods to Europe as well as to other parts of Asia. In a detailed analysis of the trading operations of European corporate enterprises such as the English and Dutch East India Companies, as well as those of private European traders, this book considers how, over a span of three centuries, the Indian economy expanded and was integrated into the pre-modern world economy as a result of these interactions. The book also describes how this essentially market-determined commercial encounter changed in the latter half of the eighteenth century as the colonial relationship between Britain and the subcontinent was established. By bringing together and examining the existing literature, the author provides a fascinating overview of the impact of European trade on the pre-modern Indian economy which will be of value to students of Indian, European and colonial history.
James William Nelson Novoa's new book Being the Nação in the Eternal City explores, in a set of case studies focusing on seven carefully chosen figures, the presence of Portuguese individuals of Jewish origin in Rome after the initial creation of a tribunal of the Portuguese Inquisition in 1531. The book delves into the varied ways in which the protagonists, representing a cross-section of Portuguese society, went about grappling with the complexities of a New Christian identity, and tracks them through their interactions with Roman society and its institutions. Some chose to flaunt Jewish origins. They espoused a sense of being part of a distinctive group, the Portuguese New Christian nação, that set them apart from other Portuguese. Others chose to blend as much as possible into the broader Iberian world represented at Rome, and avoided calling attention to their family past. All, however, had in their own way to work out the multiple shades of what was involved in being a Portuguese with Jewish roots needing to navigate the social and cultural pathways through Rome, the urban center of the Catholic Church. The book draws on archival research conducted in the Vatican, elsewhere in Italy, in Spain, and in Portugal. It brings a variety of sources to bear on the complex phenomenon of emergent group identities. It also proposes a critical reflexion on diasporas, the formation of sub-national communities, and on the structuring of collective memory in Early Modern Europe. The work will be useful to scholars and general readers interested in the Portuguese New Christian diaspora, in sixteenth century Rome, and in the dynamics of community consciousness in Early Modern Europe. In stock. Purchase direct from Baywolf Press / Éditions Baywolf & Portuguese Studies Review. Le nouvel ouvrage de James William Nelson Novoa, Being the Nação in the Eternal City, se penche sur la présence des Portugais d’origine juive à Rome après l’installation d’un tribunal de l’Inquisition au Portugal en 1531. Le livre présente, dans un cadre analytique, sept vignettes de personnages historiques. Il documente en particulier les façons dont ces agents, qui représentaient une coupe de la société portugaise contemporaine, choisirent d'affronter les exigences de leur nouvelle identité chrétienne, tout en jouant des interactions avec la société romaine et ses institutions. Certains affichaient leur racines juives. Ils épousaient un sens d'appartenir à un groupe particulier, la nação des Chrétiens Nouveaux d'origine portugaise. D’autres choisirent de s’intégrer le plus étroitement possible au petit monde des expatriés ibériques de toutes sortes à Rome, évitant d'afficher le passé.Tous durent affronter les multiples incertitudes pénombreuses d'être Portugais d’origine juive navigant entre les écueils culturels et sociaux de Rome, le siège urbain de l’Église catholique. L’ouvrage est un fruit de recherches menées en Italie, au Vatican, en Espagne, et au Portugal. Il invoque des sources diversifiées pour illuminer le phénomène complexe d'identités collectives émergentes. Il propose également des réflexions critiques au sujet de diasporas, de communautés sub-étatiques en créche, et de la mémoire collective au sein de l’Europe moderne naissante. Le livre s'adresse surtout à tous ceux, spécialistes ou non, qui s'intéressent à la diaspora des Nouveaux Chrétiens portugais, la ville de Rome au seizième siècle, et la dynamique formative communautaire au début de la période moderne.
Between 1600 and 1800, the promise of fresh food attracted more than seven hundred English, French, and Dutch vessels to Madagascar. Throughout this period, European ships spent months at sea in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, but until now scholars have not fully examined how crews were fed during these long voyages. Without sustenance from Madagascar, European traders would have struggled to transport silver to Asia and spices back to Europe. Colonies in Mozambique, Mauritius, and at the Cape relied upon frequent imports from Madagascar to feed settlers and slaves. In Feeding Globalization, Jane Hooper draws on challenging and previously untapped sources to analyze Madagascar’s role in provisioning European trading networks within and ultimately beyond the Indian Ocean. The sale of food from the island not only shaped trade routes and colonial efforts but also encouraged political centralization and the slave trade in Madagascar. Malagasy people played an essential role in supporting European global commerce, with far-reaching effects on their communities. Feeding Globalization reshapes our understanding of Indian Ocean and global history by insisting historians should pay attention to the role that food played in supporting other exchanges.
Beyond Empires explores the complexity of empire building from the point of view of self-organized networks, rather than from the point of view of the central state. This focus takes readers into a world of cooperative strategies worldwide that emphasises the role played by individuals, rather than institutions, in the overseas expansion and consequent development of European empires. While unveiling the practices and mechanisms of cooperation between individuals, this volume show cases the role played by individuals for the creation, development and maintenance of self-organized networks in the Early Modern period. Applying new conceptual and theoretical inputs, this book values the contributions of different ‘worlds’, bringing to the fore the interactions of Europeans and non-Europeans, Christians and non-Christians, people living within-, on- or just outside the border of empire.
A unique overview of Portuguese oceanic expansion between 1400 and 1800, the essays in this volume treat a wide range of subjects - economy and society, politics and institutions, cultural configurations and comparative dimensions - and radically update data and interpretations on the economic and financial trends of the Portuguese Empire. Interregional networks are analysed in a substantial way. Patterns of settlement, political configurations, ecclesiastical structures, and local powers are put in global context. Language and literature, the arts, and science and technology are revisited with refreshing and innovative approaches. The interaction between Portuguese and local people is studied in different contexts, while the entire imperial and colonial culture of the Portuguese world is looked at synthetically for the first time. In short, this book provides a broad understanding of the Portuguese Empire in its first four centuries as a factor in world history and as a major component of European expansion.
How did free trade emerge in early-modern times? How did the Mediterranean as a specific region – with its own historical characteristics – produce a culture in which the free port appeared? What was the relation between the type of free trade created in early-modern Italy and the development of global trade and commercial competition between states for hegemony in the eighteenth century? And how did the position of the free port, originally a Mediterranean ‘invention’, develop over the course of time? The contributions to this volume address these questions and explain the institutional genealogy of the free port. Free Trade and Free Ports in the Mediterranean analyses the atypical history and conditions of the Mediterranean region in contradistinction with other regions as an explanation for how and why free ports arose there. This volume engages with the diffusion of free ports from a Mediterranean to a global phenomenon, whilst staying focused on how this diffusion was experienced in the Mediterranean itself. The contributions to this volume bring together the traditional issues of religious openness and tolerance in physically separated areas and the role of consuls and governors, via fiscal techniques, architectural and administrative aspects, with questions about geopolitical balance and primacy. The book will be of interest to scholars in a wide range of historical sub-disciplines (early modern, Mediterranean, global economic, political, and institutional, just to mention a few) and to students wishing to perfect their knowledge of the Mediterranean and its global interconnections, and of the origins of free trade.
The economic history of early India is a rich and diverse area of study, covering agricultural developments, trade, markets, occupation and professional groups, urbanization and the institutions that govern the economy. Recent research has expanded our understanding of the processes of transformation of the economy in different temporal contexts within the Indian sub-continent. They have particularly led us to explore connected histories given the trans-continental trading networks and movements of people from very early times. This volume seeks to draw attention to this vast and unexplored terrain in the economic history of early India, by bringing together essays on a new and rich historiography. Essays in the volume cover neglected regions, economic processes and structures. Scholars have looked at questions of settlements, crops that were cultivated and market orientation. Essays cover material culture and provide insights into how early Indians lived, what kinds of activities they were engaged in, and how they organised their production activities within and outside domestic spaces. Further the volume bring new insights on hierarchy of settlement types, nature of exchange, and the significance of a nodal site in exchange networks. Maritime history as well as the understanding of trade in its varied forms and manifestations are covered in several essays.
