What do you think?
Rate this book
Trade and Dominion
Trade and Dominion
432 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2000
About the author
John H. Parry
37 books4 followersJohn Horace Parry (J. H. Parry), a historian of the seas and the men who sailed them for trade and conquest, died Wednesday of a heart attack at his home in Cambridge, Mass. He was 68 years old.
Professor Parry came to this country from his native Britain in 1965 to join the history department of Harvard University as Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs.
He was the author of 10 books chronicling the era of seaborne discoverers and traders from the 15th through 18th centuries. At the time of his death, he was preparing a book on the times of Captain Cook.
He was born April 26, 1914. He spent some student years at Harvard before earning his doctorate at Cambridge University in 1938. His academic career was interrupted by five years of service in the Royal Navy in World War II, and he was awarded the Order of the British Empire. Wrote on Spanish Empire
His first book, ''The Spanish Theory of Empire,'' was published while he was on naval duty in 1940. Among his more recent volumes published in this country was ''The Spanish Seaborne Empire'' in 1966, relating the exploits of Cortes, Pizarro and other conquistadors.
''The barbarous courage and the brutal splendor of the conquest are not scanted by Mr. Parry,'' Charles Poore wrote, reviewing the book in The New York Times. ''But he also gives us much more precise knowledge about what went on from day to day, what people ate, how they established wages for slavery and or peonage, and so on, than we get from the pageantry school of historians.''
Professor Parry's later books included ''The Discovery of the Sea'' (1974) and ''The Discovery of South America'' (1979). After his naval service, he became a tutor and lecturer at Cambridge and then taught at University College of the West Indies. He was a visiting professor of history at Harvard in the mid-1950's before serving for four years as principal of University College in Ibadan, Nigeria.
Before his 1965 return to Harvard, Professor Parry served at University College of Swansea, Wales, and as vice chancellor of the University of Wales.
He is survived by his wife, the former Joyce Carter; a son, Michael, and three daughters, Joanna, Katherine and Elizabeth.
Professor Parry came to this country from his native Britain in 1965 to join the history department of Harvard University as Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs.
He was the author of 10 books chronicling the era of seaborne discoverers and traders from the 15th through 18th centuries. At the time of his death, he was preparing a book on the times of Captain Cook.
He was born April 26, 1914. He spent some student years at Harvard before earning his doctorate at Cambridge University in 1938. His academic career was interrupted by five years of service in the Royal Navy in World War II, and he was awarded the Order of the British Empire. Wrote on Spanish Empire
His first book, ''The Spanish Theory of Empire,'' was published while he was on naval duty in 1940. Among his more recent volumes published in this country was ''The Spanish Seaborne Empire'' in 1966, relating the exploits of Cortes, Pizarro and other conquistadors.
''The barbarous courage and the brutal splendor of the conquest are not scanted by Mr. Parry,'' Charles Poore wrote, reviewing the book in The New York Times. ''But he also gives us much more precise knowledge about what went on from day to day, what people ate, how they established wages for slavery and or peonage, and so on, than we get from the pageantry school of historians.''
Professor Parry's later books included ''The Discovery of the Sea'' (1974) and ''The Discovery of South America'' (1979). After his naval service, he became a tutor and lecturer at Cambridge and then taught at University College of the West Indies. He was a visiting professor of history at Harvard in the mid-1950's before serving for four years as principal of University College in Ibadan, Nigeria.
Before his 1965 return to Harvard, Professor Parry served at University College of Swansea, Wales, and as vice chancellor of the University of Wales.
He is survived by his wife, the former Joyce Carter; a son, Michael, and three daughters, Joanna, Katherine and Elizabeth.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 26, 2024
I was wondering why this book, generally dispassionate and encyclopedic, turns into a hot-blooded adventure story whenever the focus shifts to ships, their crews and their captains. Then you check the author's life and find he served as an officer in the Royal Navy in World War II and got torpedoed three times. You're not a nerd, you actually lived this, good on you!
Wide-ranging, multidisciplinary history of maritime trade, war, colonialism and settlerism from the Portuguese in Angola to the Pax Brittanica. Clearly stems from a different time when the causes of the end of slavery were sought more in developments between the Great Men of empire rather than resistance by the enslaved, as is the vogue today. The bright attention to technological details (the difficulties of asserting coordinates at high sea, the vagaries of Pacific crossings, the fight against maritime and tropical disease) stands in contrast to the relative indifference with which Parry talks of the suffering of the defeated. Weakness begets domination, seems to be his outlook; rapaciously with the Spanish and the Portuguese, reluctantly with Brits and the Dutch.
"It is a curious feature of a second age of discovery that the optimism, the confidence, emanated from the theorists, the scepticism from the practical explorers."
Wide-ranging, multidisciplinary history of maritime trade, war, colonialism and settlerism from the Portuguese in Angola to the Pax Brittanica. Clearly stems from a different time when the causes of the end of slavery were sought more in developments between the Great Men of empire rather than resistance by the enslaved, as is the vogue today. The bright attention to technological details (the difficulties of asserting coordinates at high sea, the vagaries of Pacific crossings, the fight against maritime and tropical disease) stands in contrast to the relative indifference with which Parry talks of the suffering of the defeated. Weakness begets domination, seems to be his outlook; rapaciously with the Spanish and the Portuguese, reluctantly with Brits and the Dutch.
"It is a curious feature of a second age of discovery that the optimism, the confidence, emanated from the theorists, the scepticism from the practical explorers."
September 14, 2019
This is the companion volume to Parry's Age of Reconaissance.
July 20, 2013
Interesting study of the period and the trade relations that existed back then. A bit academic for most (written in 1971) but not a dull read.
July 17, 2017
An invaluable textbook for students of the eighteenth century.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews