The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500‐1700

Subrahmanyam, Sanjay

doi:10.1002/9781118496459

Cited by 90 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…26 The commercial side of Portuguese expeditions is underscored in Subrahmanyam's chapter tellingly entitled, 'Mercantilism and Messianism'. 27 He posits that 'the careful reader of [João de] Barros (Portuguese fifteenth century chronicler) and of other contemporary writings and documents soon discovers that those who were so religiously motivated could often be equally the persons in whose breasts the most fervently mercantilist spirit resided'. 28 Subrahmanyam gives the example of Infante Dom Henrique, Master of the Order of Christ, and creator of the Portuguese Crown patronage of missions, who was also a trader of sugar and slaves.…”

Section: Portuguese Orientalism In Hormuz?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Persian–Portuguese Encounter in Hormuz: Orientalism Reconsidered

Tazmini¹

2017

Iranian Stud.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In 2015, the quincentennial commemoration of the Portuguese arrival on the island of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf (1515-1622) revealed the underlying presupposition among Iranians that the Portuguese presence on the island was the harbinger of a long-term pattern of Western imperialism. This analysis questions the accuracy of this narrative by advancing a new interpretative framework that does not reduce the holding of Hormuz to simply another dark episode of European colonial history. Circumscribed and limited in aim and reach, Lusitanian activities on Hormuz cannot be brought under the generic rubric of "Orientalism", which is embedded in European colonial tradition, and which by extension, buttresses Iranian nationalist sentiment about the Persian-Portuguese entanglement. My research demonstrates that Portuguese objectives diverged from the 18 th and 19 th century rationalist scientific traditions of the British, French and Germans professing a civilising mission as a rationale for colonial policies. Whereas the Portuguese operated from a worldview that combined profit, dynastic pride, and religious rhetoric the Portuguese mission to Hormuz was not guided by a grand discourse of civilising the "other". While there was a complex interplay of commercial interests and brutal methods on this strategic êntrepot, Portuguese ambitions in Hormuz were confined and elusive, and at best a matter of tribute-taking. The present paper charters some of these complex interactions.

show abstract

Section: Portuguese Orientalism In Hormuz?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Persian–Portuguese Encounter in Hormuz: Orientalism Reconsidered

Tazmini¹

2017

Iranian Stud.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Commercially, the Europeans' arrival kick‐started the direct Europe–Asia trade, which grew twenty‐five‐fold in the three centuries to 1800 (De Vries :718). Moreover, the Europeans found that to pay for Asian merchandise, they had to generate profits by intraregional trade, for example, between Gujarat and the Swahili Coast of Africa, or Bengal and archipelagic South‐East Asia (Boxer ; Chaudhuri ; Pearson ; Subrahmanyam ). By volume, more European trade was intraregional than extraregional.…”

Section: Diversity In the Early Modern Indian Oceanmentioning

confidence: 99%

Explaining Durable Diversity in International Systems: State, Company, and Empire in the Indian Ocean

Phillips

Sharman

2015

Int Stud Q

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

International Relations theories generally hold that increased interaction between units in an international system produces convergence in their forms through military competition, institutional emulation, or normative socialization. In contrast, we argue that diverse international systems can endure despite increasing interaction. The early modern Indian Ocean international system hosted a variety of statist, corporate, and imperial polities. Diversity endured for three reasons. First, powerful foreign and local actors held differing maritime and land‐oriented preferences for conquest, which created the potential for coexistence between unlike polities. Second, congruent European and Asian ideas of heteronomy facilitated durable polity diversity. Third, strategies of localization enhanced enmeshment. Convergence on common polity forms failed to occur despite the presence of a statist model during this period. Subsequently, a reconfigured form of diversity under colonial empires succeeded this order. Greater attention to past diverse systems coheres with recent calls to study history to better understand not only contemporary instances of international hierarchy, but also unbundled and shared sovereignty regimes.

show abstract

“…There are examples from this period of renegade Portuguese men who left Goa to take up service in Bijapur's military, settling down and marrying local women (and occasionally returning to Goa to double-cross Bijapur). 62 Moreover, while Heda was, as far as we know, the fi rst European artist in Bijapur, he was not the last; Johan van Twist (who visited Bijapur in 1637 to negotiate for Adil Shahi military cooperation with the Dutch) records meeting a painter-spy named Antonio de Witt there. 63 Thus, while Heda seems to have been one of the fi rst European artists to arrive in Bijapur, in making the move from Goa to the Islamic sultanate in search of royal patronage and material gain, he was following a path well-trodden by merchants, soldiers, and others.…”

Section: Exercising Agency In Goamentioning

confidence: 99%