Portuguese Oceanic Expansion, 1400-1800

Francisco Bethencourt is Charles Boxer Professor, King's College, University of London. He is the author of O Imaginario da Magia and L'inquisition ... l'epoque moderne: Espagne, Portugal, Italie, XVe-XIXe siecles, and the editor of Historia da Expansao Portuguesa (with Kirti Chadhuri) and A Memoria da Nacao (with Diogo Ramda Curto). He has been Director of the National Library of Portugal and the Gulbenkian Foundation Cultural Center in Paris. Diogo Ramada Curto is Vasco da Gama Professor, European University Institute, Florence. He is the author of O Discurso Politico em Portugal, and the editor of The Jesuits as Cultural Intermediaries, La Cartografia Europea tra Primo Rinascimento e fine dell'Illuminismo (with Angelo Cattaneo), O Tempo de Vasco da Gama and A Memoria da Nacao (with Francisco Bethencourt). He has been a Lecturer, Reader, and Professor at Universidade Nova de Lisboa, and a Visiting Professor at Yale and Brown Universities.

A unique overview of Portuguese oceanic expansion between 1400 and 1800, the essays 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.

Preface Norman Fiering; Introduction Francisco Bethencourt and Diogo Ramada Curto translated by Neil Safier; Part I. Economics and Society: 1. The economy of the Portuguese Empire Stuart Schwartz; 2. Costs and financial trends in the Portuguese Empire, 1415¿1822 Jorge Pedreira; 3. Markets and merchant communities in the Indian Ocean M. N. Pearson; 4. The economic network of Portugal's Atlantic world Luis Felipe de Alencastro translated by Marguerite I. Harrison; 5. The Portuguese in Africa John Thornton; Part II. Politics and Institutions: 6. Patterns of settlement in the Portuguese Empire John Russell-Wood; 7. Political configurations and local powers Francisco Bethencourt; 8. Ecclesiastical structures and religious action Isabel dos Guimarães Sá; Part III. The Cultural World: 9. Encounters, negotiations, and interactions Anthony Disney; 10. Portuguese imperial and colonial culture Diogo Ramada Curto; 11. Language and literature in the Portuguese Empire Luís Moura Sobral; 12. Science and technology in Portuguese navigation: an essay on the idea of experience in the sixteenth century Francisco C. Domingues translated by Neil Safier; Part IV. The Comparative Dimension: 13. Portuguese expansion in a global context Felipe Fernández-Armesto.