Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Abbreviations
- List of Maps
- Preface
- Maps
- Introduction: The Geographical Setting
- 1 Hunter-Gatherers to Iron Age Farmers
- 2 The Roman Experience
- 3 The Germanic Kingdoms
- 4 Gharb al-Andalus
- 5 The Medieval Kingdom
- 6 The Fourteenth Century
- 7 The Making of Avis Portugal
- 8 The Golden Age
- 9 The Tarnished Age
- 10 Habsburg Portugal
- 11 Restoration and Reconstruction
- 12 The Age of Gold and Baroque Splendour
- 13 The Age of Pombal
- 14 The Late Eighteenth Century: Finale of the Old Regime
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Abbreviations
- List of Maps
- Preface
- Maps
- Introduction: The Geographical Setting
- 1 Hunter-Gatherers to Iron Age Farmers
- 2 The Roman Experience
- 3 The Germanic Kingdoms
- 4 Gharb al-Andalus
- 5 The Medieval Kingdom
- 6 The Fourteenth Century
- 7 The Making of Avis Portugal
- 8 The Golden Age
- 9 The Tarnished Age
- 10 Habsburg Portugal
- 11 Restoration and Reconstruction
- 12 The Age of Gold and Baroque Splendour
- 13 The Age of Pombal
- 14 The Late Eighteenth Century: Finale of the Old Regime
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Fort Jesus, the Portuguese-built stronghold that stands sentinel over the gently shimmering waters of Mombasa harbour with their clustered dhows, first drew me to Portugal's history. As a boy I lived on a farm in western Kenya. Occasionally, when the price of maize was favourable or coffee had had a particularly good year, my father would treat my mother, my sister and me to a holiday on the coast. There, each time, would be the fort – a quietly brooding monument to Mombasa's turbulent past and to the seemingly mysterious role played in it by the Portuguese.
In Oxford, on a cool November day of 1960, my interest in Fort Jesus was unexpectedly re-kindled. Gazing at a display in Blackwell's window, I caught sight of a new book with a bright, glossy dust jacket: Fort Jesus and the Portuguese in Mombasa by C. R. Boxer and Carlos de Azevedo. There, splashed across the front, was a photograph of the fort, its mellowed seawalls supporting their serrated Arab battlements, fringed by gently swaying coconut palms, with the little beach nearby. As soon as I could, I scraped together from my modest student allowance the required twenty-one shillings and bought that book. It was the fort, and the book about the fort, that led me in due course to write A History of Portugal and the Portuguese Empire: From Beginnings to 1807.
One of the first European kingdoms to establish stable borders, Portugal has had an unusually long and rich history.
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- Chapter
- Information
- A History of Portugal and the Portuguese EmpireFrom Beginnings to 1807, pp. xvii - xxiiPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009