Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Impire

I love history, and this is one of the best written I have read. It is very informative, but reads like a novel. One gets a feel for the personality and motivation of the main protagonists which makes it far more readable than most other history books which tend to be a compilation of facts. I will definitely buy other novels written by this author.

Learn everything you need to know about the earliest explorers from Europe. Written as if you were on the ships that first crossed the world and covers the most important age of Portugal s expansion that changed the world as we know it. Great read before you go to Lisbon because it adds so much historic context to the city's squares, castles and even the famous pastries. I will never look at Pastéis de nata the same again.

This is what I like the most about Roger Crowley's books: he is a historian who unfailingly puts his finger on the most relevant aspects of a story and then proceeds to tell it with grace. He sure knows how to plot a compelling story and keep you hooked from page one until the very end. Reading the blurbs on the back of his books, you get the impression that he is a "popular historian" who wants to entertain his readers above all (planes and airport lobbies seem to figure often in such enthusiastic back-of-the-book reviews), and while this is not far from the truth, one can also make the case that Crowley is a passionate and knowledgeable scholar who refuses to tell a boring story. (His bibliographies, for starters, are quite impressive. And he can read many of the languages that his primary sources are in, such as Spanish and Portuguese.) This, in my view, is how history should be taught and told. --Thank you Roger Crowley for your books and the passion you put into them -- I can't wait to read your book on Venice and her Mediterranean empire. Your book Empires of the Sea was also a great adventure...

Roger Crowley's Conquerors is a fascinating, engaging and well researched account of Portugal's plunge into the Indian Ocean in the early 16th century. In a short 20 year period, Portugal pioneered the global empires of Europe and stole Indian ocean trade from Muslim traders ending the Egyptian and Venitian monopoly on spices in Europe. It was a great Crusade against Islam and was also an act of conquest to rival the feats and atrocities of the conquistadors in South America. In the late 15th century, Portugal was a small, poor and unimportant kingdom pressed up against the brutal Atlantic ocean. Their king was a pious Christian dedicated to war on Islam. They had started probing down the coast of Africa, developed their maritime technology and experience as they went. One of their main goals was to find the mythical tip of Africa and sail into the Indian ocean. The breakthrough came in 1488, when Bartolomeu Dias, in a daring move, swept out into the Atlantic instead of hugging safely to the African coast and fighting the prevailing winds. In doing so he discovered trade winds that swept him around the cape. This book primarily details the feats of three nobles who followed him: Vasco da Gama, Francisco de Almeida, and Afonso de Albuquerque. Together they managed to dominate the Indian Ocean. They achieved this with audacity, aggression, handful of ships, a few thousand men, a superiority of tactics and technology, and a knack for rapidly understanding local politics. Time and time again they defeated enemies while vastly outnumbered. Yet, the book also covers the dark side of this conquest. As a crusade, the Portuguese achieved their dominance through sheer terror, committed numerous atrocities. They frequently bombarded, burned and sacked cities, murdering the inhabitants. They captured Muslim ships at sea, taking their cargoes and burning the ships with their Muslim crews and passengers on board. Eventually, not strong enough to take on the whole Muslim world, they were forced to compromise and ally with some Muslim rulers against some of their more bitter enemies. Overall, this book is a great read, and a compelling account of this important turning point in history.

Ho comprato quest Libro in inglese poiché in italiano non l’ho trovato, motivo per cui dono ancora a meta. Comunque molto interessante e scorrevole, a volte un po’ troppo descrittivo, ma ben scritto. Lo consiglio a chi piace il genere storico