A History of Portugal and the Portuguese Empire From Beginnings to 1807 [Paperback]

A comprehensive overview and reinterpretation of Portugal's formation and history up to 1807 and of its acquisition of a wide-flung maritime empire from the early fifteenth century.The History of Portugal and the Portuguese Empire offers English-speaking readers a comprehensive overview and reinterpretation of the history of Portugal and its empire down up to the start of the nineteenth century. Volume II concentrates on the history of Portugals empire, which extended into North, West, and East Africa; the Atlantic Islands; maritime Asia; and Brazil.The History of Portugal and the Portuguese Empire offers English-speaking readers a comprehensive overview and reinterpretation of the history of Portugal and its empire down up to the start of the nineteenth century. Volume II concentrates on the history of Portugals empire, which extended into North, West, and East Africa; the Atlantic Islands; maritime Asia; and Brazil.The Kingdom of Portugal was created as a by-product of the Christian Reconquest of Hispania. With no geographical raison d?tre and no obvious roots in its Roman, Germanic, or Islamic pasts, it for long remained a small, struggling realm on Europes outer fringe. Then, in the early fifteenth century, this unlikely springboard for Western expansion suddenly began to accumulate an empire of its own, eventually extending more than halfway around the globe. The History of Portugal and the Portuguese Empire, drawing particularly on historical scholarship postdating the 1974 Portuguese Revolution, offers readers a comprehensive overview and reinterpretation of how all this happened  the first such account to appear in English for more than a generation. Volume I concerns the history of Portugal itself from pre-Roman times to the climactic French invasion of 1807, and Volume II traces the history of the Portuguese overseas empire.1. North Africa; 2. Exploring the coasts of Atlantic Africa; 3. Engaging with Atlantic Africa; 4. The Atlantic islands and fisherlÃ)