FREE CONQUERORS: HOW FORGED THE FIRST GLOBAL EMPIRE PDF

Roger Crowley | 432 pages | 04 Aug 2016 | FABER & FABER | 9780571290901 | English | London, United Kingdom Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire (Roger Crowley) • The Worthy House

Afonso de Albuquerque died years ago, after spending a dozen years terrorizing coastal cities from to Malaysia. He enriched thousands of men and killed tens of thousands more. Despite never commanding more Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire a few dozen ships, he built one of the first modern intercontinental empires. Perhaps, he mused, he could destroy Islam altogether. It is a classic ripping yarn, packed with excitement, violence and cliffhangers. Its larger-than-life characters are at once extraordinary and repulsive, at one moment imagining the world in entirely new ways and at the next braying with delight over massacring entire cities. At in the Portuguese killed Muslims with a loss of five of their own men. The biggest of these is surely how a handful of Europeans managed, for good and ill, to do so much. Crowley does not give us an explicit answer, but he provides more Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire enough information for readers to make up their own minds. Some historians have suggested that Albuquerque owed his success more to divisions within India than to any European advantages, but Crowley makes it clear that infighting among the Portuguese was even worse. The theory that Christian civilization Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire simply superior to Muslim and Hindu cultures seems equally unconvincing. As Crowley describes it, was less a model of reason than a precursor of the Wild West, and most Portuguese were so ignorant about India that it took them years to work out that Hinduism was a religion in its own right, not a provincial version of Christianity. Fighting — or more precisely ships, guns and ferocity — does seem to be what it came down to. But getting to India was merely a sufficient condition; without devastating guns, the Europeans would have accomplished little. Sometimes indiscipline brought on disaster, but often Africans, Indians, Arabs and Turks turned and fled. Manuel and Albuquerque came close to pulling off the biggest strategic coup in history, converting Portugal from the most backward fringe of western Eurasia to the center of a global empire. Home Page World U. Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire by Roger Crowley

Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — Conquerors Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire Roger Crowley. As remarkable as Columbus and the expeditions, the history of Portuguese exploration is now almost forgotten. But Portugal's navigators cracked the code of the Atlantic winds, launched the expedition of to India and beat the Spanish to the kingdoms of the East - then set about creating the first long-range maritime Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire. In an astonishing As remarkable as Columbus and the conquistador expeditions, the history of Portuguese exploration is now almost forgotten. In an astonishing blitz of thirty years, a handful of visionary and utterly ruthless empire builders, with few resources but breathtaking ambition, attempted to seize the , destroy Islam and take control of world trade. Told with Roger Crowley's customary skill and verve, this is narrative history at its most vivid - an epic tale of navigation, trade and technology, money and religious zealotry, political diplomacy and espionage, sea battles and shipwrecks, endurance, courage and terrifying brutality. Drawing on extensive first-hand accounts, it brings to life the exploits of an extraordinary band of conquerors - men such as , Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire first European since Alexander the Great to found an Asian empire - who set in motion five hundred years of European colonisation and unleashed the forces of globalisation. Get A Copy. Hardcoverpages. Published December 1st by Random House first published January 1st More Details Original Title. Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Conquerorsplease sign up. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 4. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Jun 24, Max rated it it was amazing Shelves: world-history. Riveting, bloody history. Crowley makes the people and the action come alive on the page. Conquerors is not a mere recitation of facts, but a look deep into the thoughts and emotions of the Portuguese explorers who found the way to India and the way to dominate the . Their methods were brutal. They were fearless, Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire, arrogant and hateful. They killed countless thousands for territory, plunder, religion, revenge or just to show that they were not to be messed with. This is Riveting, bloody history. This is much more than the history I remember from school about the Portuguese and the . Fortunately, the Portuguese kept good records giving Crowley much material to work with and he uses it well. Of all the states in fifteenth century Europe, how did a small and poor country like Portugal become the one to open a direct route to India? The kings were driven by three things: 1 A desire to find the fabled , a Christian ruler on the Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire side of the Muslim world, and ally with him against the Muslims. Their experience was based on encounters Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire West African tribes as they methodically advanced down the African Coast. They had no concept of how the world bordering the Indian Ocean worked. When Vasco da Gama landed in India he and his crew were taken aback when they Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire encountered a Castilian speaking Tunisian. What they found was a sophisticated world they could not comprehend. Anchoring in Calicut, Gama was taken to the ruler, the samudri raja. The Portuguese thought he was the Christian Prester John, perhaps mistaking Krishna for Christ, although they did wonder why the pictures of Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire saints had so many arms and legs. The samudri was not impressed with Gama and his men. The gifts they brought, trinkets and foods they had used in trade in Africa, were insulting. The sumudri expected gold. The Portuguese were the barbarians. The Portuguese believed they had a God given destiny and they had an iron will. They also were out for profit. The spice trade to Europe was controlled by Venice and Genoa working through Arab intermediaries who got the goods to Cairo. Along the way many middlemen were paid. Status was also very important to the Portuguese king, Manuel I. A couple of years later a Portuguese expedition to India Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire onto the coast of Brazil, but it was considered unimportant. The Portuguese carried with them intense hatred of the Muslims with whom they fought continuously in North Africa. The Portuguese were battle hardened fighters and seasoned sailors. They were confident in their canons, which were superior. The Muslims were well established traders in India. Initially the Portuguese had to rely on Muslims as translators first to take the Portuguese to Arabic then the Arabic to Maylayalam, the language of Calicut. The Muslims saw the Portuguese as competitors and helped foster discord which given the Portuguese ignorance and arrogance would have developed anyway. After doing some trading, Gama finally wanted to leave, but the samudri wanted his tax money first. One thing led to another and Gama took off without paying taxes and taking Hindu hostages with him on his return to Portugal. The Portuguese now were considered completely untrustworthy at best and dangerous enemies at worst. In another expedition was launched from Portugal under the command of Pedro Alvarez Cabral. When Cabral landed at Calicut a new sumadri was in command but relations were no better especially when Cabral informed him of his intentions to capture any Muslim ship on open water and began doing so. This news riled the public which attacked the Portuguese loading on shore. Suffering casualties Cabral fled Calicut but turned back and took out his revenge capturing ten ships in Calicut harbor and killing the five to six hundred people aboard. Then he leveled his guns on the city delivering a ferocious bombardment destroying many buildings. There was now no doubt about how the Portuguese planned to engage their new trading partner. Cabral had left with thirteen ships but only seven ships, five loaded with spices, made it back in The others were lost to storms and accidents, something that proved to be all too common. The Portuguese would now fight first, talk later. The first thing Gama did upon arrival in India was to capture a Muslim ship, the Miri. About passengers were returning from Mecca, some were Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire. They offered Gama everything they had to let them go. Gama took nothing. After some fierce resistance, Gama set the ship on fire and watched them burn. He did pull off twenty children who were to be converted to Christianity. Gama was sending notice: Be afraid, very afraid. This incident was long remembered in India. He captured 34 Muslims and fisherman and entered Calicut harbor with them hanging from the masts so everyone could see. Residents lined the beach looking in horror. Gama opened fire killing many as they fled then he turned his guns on the buildings and houses in the town. Gama then cut down those he had hanged, cut off their heads, hands and feet and put the body parts in a fishing boat. He attached a note and sent it to shore. And here is the produce of this country. I am sending you this present now. It is also for your king…. New commanders took over, but all were every bit as vicious as Vasco da Gama, and this is what King Manuel expected of them. More and more local leaders threw in their lot with the Portuguese seeing them as invincible. The Portuguese protected their new vassal states and built forts to protect their landholdings and their spice trade. Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire - Wikipedia

Most of us think of the as a westward movement: Columbus seeking a new route to the Indies by crossing the Atlantic and — Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire by accident — discovering the Americas. That discovery of offshore islands in the Caribbean was quickly followed by the subjugation of vast Native American empires like the Aztecs and the Incas on the mainland, accomplished by tiny bands of incredibly tough, confident and ruthless . But the pioneering Spanish conquest of the Americas was only half of the story — in some ways, the less remarkable half. Both began on the Iberian peninsula where the indigenous Christian populations of Castile, Aragon and other future components of a united Spanish monarchy, and the tough, impoverished little kingdom of Portugalperched on the tip of the peninsula, drove out the Muslim Moorish invaders who had overrun their lands starting in the 8th century. The crusading spirit awakened by the Reconquista took on a life of its own with Spanish and Portuguese attempts to carry the fight to Muslim North Africa and beyond. If the crusader spirit — coupled with the thirst for gold — drew the Spaniards westward to the Americas, the same twin motives drove the Portuguese eastward. Remarkable deeds require remarkable Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire. In Affonso de Albuquerque, Portugal found such a man. All of which he did, usually with a handful of sailors and soldiers skilled in the use of naval artillery that outperformed anything African and Asian foes in their overwhelming numbers could command. He was also a man of straightforward eloquence, neither falsely modest nor claiming anything he could not deliver. This is not because of any special merits of my own but because I am very experienced in such matters and of an age to tell good from bad. At its height it was glorified by Luis Vaz de Camoes, the soldier poet who penned the Lusiads, the Portuguese national epic. Manage Newsletters. Click here for reprint permission. Click to Read More and View Comments. Click to Hide. May Cheryl K. Donald Trump. Joe Biden. Champions League. Joseph R. Supreme Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire. By Aram Bakshian Jr. Please read our comment policy before commenting.