About This Book
The story of how a small country on the edge of Europe reached out across the oceans and seized control of the Indian Ocean trade routes is one of the most extraordinary stories in human history—and Roger Crowley tells it with the propulsive energy of a thriller and the depth of serious scholarship. My fascination with the Age of Discovery runs deep. I see in it the same impulse that drove the Romans to build roads across Europe, and Marco Polo to walk the length of the Silk Road: the human hunger to understand what lies beyond the horizon. Commerce and conquest were always tangled together, and this book does not let you forget it. Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how the modern world was built.
For the broader context of the trade routes Portugal sought to dominate, The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan is essential reading, while Imperial Twilight picks up the story as European maritime empires turned their attention to China.