A. J. R. Russell-Wood
Amazon Price: $18.85
List Price: $22.00
Usually ships in 24 hours
By: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Amazon Marketplace: 27
new & used starting at $7.10
|
Buy at Amazon.com
|
Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> Portugal
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> Spain
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> General
Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5
Average rating: 5.0 of 5
Another Great Introduction 4 out of 5 stars.
31 of 32 people found this review helpful.
In terms of scope of work, Russell-Wood's Portuguese Empire -World on the Move is a welcome addition to the "holistic" study of Portuguese overseas enterprise. To be sure, Portuguese scholarship has "caught up" with developments in Western historiography in the last two decades or so; there is also no shortage of area studies. Yet coverage remains uneven and this is especially so where English works on the subject is concernedIn terms of Western historiography, global history remains a nascent field. The diversely and globally located formal and informal enclaves does not mean that the overseas experiences belong to the Portuguese people alone, they were not to be claimed exclusively by Asians, Africans or Brazilians either; but as one scholar remarked -it was a shared memory
Like its more "matured" British counterpart, Portuguese history is increasingly interacting with indigenous and primary sources. Russell-Wood's Portuguese Empire is built on largely secondary sources, as expected; including afew Portuguese primary materials. Mastering the languages and the necessary paleography remains a daunting task for any historian. Eventhough the perspective might be Portuguese, the issues dealt with are global in nature; qualifying it in the category of world history. Russell-Wood also clarified from the beginning that he will not be probing too much into the political-administrative-military aspect but with explore the technologies, geography, demography, economics, ideas and dynamics of ecology (ie flora, fauna and disease)
In terms of perspective, the Portuguese Empire does indeed take on a "new history" approach, looking not only at the business of "the high class" in society (ie administrators and clergy) but also at the individuals and the voiceless
Whether in terms of human experience or traffic of goods, Russell-Wood has woven the international nature of the Portuguese empire well into the book. In an illustration of the former, there was a father and son team who were given appointments from Brazil to Africa to Goa and Macao and even returning briefly to Portugal to participate in the War of Spanish Succession (p 70-1). In the terms of trade, cloves from Ternate were carried to Malacca, to Cochim, then to Lisbon, reloaded there for Morocco and exchanged for wheat which became a further part of the exchange system of the South Atlantic (p 134). Excellent maps and tables were also interspersed in the book to explain the flow and traffic of commodities exchanged between the Portuguese and their hosts or that of the complicated wind system of the Atlantic or Indian Ocean
In some ways, the largely non new primary resource based and reinterpretative nature of the book meant it will still resonates afew outdated ideas. For example, the book continues to portray a planned approach by which the Portuguese were undertaking their overseas enterprise (p 21). Even the historians of the more "successful" British are conceiting that the formation of its First Empire might be more haphazard that what have been previously believed. Granted, the Portuguese venture had seen more of the state/crown intervention in the beginning than the private enterprise approach of the British; logistical and technological challenges of the time forbid a more coordinated effort
The book professed to look at development of the "Portuguese Empire" to the eve of the Napoleonic Wars just on the onset of nineteenth century (beginning of modern era?). Space does not permit it to treat the entire period with justice even on the secondary sources available. On trying to tie the Portuguese world together, the book did a splendid job and certainly complement, as the author humbly acknowledged, Boxer CR's magnificently written Portuguese Seaborne Empire as well as many other research done to date on political and military aspect of this human experience
Editorial Review:
By approaching the history of the Portuguese empire thematically, historian A.J.R. Russell-Wood paints a broad portrait of the first and one of the greatest colonial empires--its birth, apotheosis, and decline. Russell-Wood shows unique insight into the diversity and balance between competing interests and priorities that characterized the Portuguese culture and its expansion, spanning four centuries's events on four different continents. 84 illustrations.
