Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire

by Roger Crowley

In Almeida and Albuquerque, Manuel had had the luck of two incorruptible and loyal commanders, the latter one of the great conquerors and visionary empire builders of world history. With never more than a few thousand men, makeshift resources, worm-eaten ships, and breathtaking ambition, Albuquerque gifted him an empire in the Indian Ocean, underpinned by a matrix of fortified bases. In the process, the Portuguese surprised the world. No one in the European arena had predicted that this tiny marginalized country would make a vaulting leap into the East, join up the hemispheres, and construct the first empire with a global reach. “Why does not the king of Castile, the king of France or the Signoria of Venice send men here?” seemed a reasonable question to ask when Gama first landed at Calicut. Only Portugal could: the answer lay in the long decades of acquired knowledge and tenacious effort on the prow of Europe, during which discovery became an organ of state policy.