A talk by Peter Kingdon Booker

We hear often about the voyage of Vasco da Gama and the consequent emergence of globalisation. In the sixteenth century, Portugal grew an eastern empire, and riches were there for the taking. We know too that first the Dutch and then the British muscled in on what the Portuguese considered a closed sea. And soon, the empire was nothing more than the shell of a memory of what had preceded it. It is unquestionable that the Portuguese Empire lasted the longest, from 1415 (Ceuta) until 1999 (Macau). How did they do it? Are there elements in the empire which are less well known? Peter Booker casts a chronological survey over the Estado da India from 1498 to 1999, and attempts to assess its continuing value.

A Portuguese Nau

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