FREE CONQUERORS: HOW PORTUGAL 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 Yemen 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 Mombasa 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, Lisbon was less a model of Renaissance 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 conquistador 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 Vasco da Gama to India and beat the Spanish to the spice 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 Indian Ocean, 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 Afonso de Albuquerque, 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 Malabar Coast. 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 spice trade. 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 Prester John, 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 spices 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.