Holy War

June 27, 2011
In this fresh take on the history of the age of discovery, British historian Cliff (The Shakespeare Riots) not only recovers the story of Vasco da Gama's voyages (long overshadowed by Columbus's) for our times. He also uncovers da Gama's complex motives. In 1498, his fleet he set sail ; from Lisbon to open a sea route from Europe to Asia and "unlock the age-old secrets of the spice trade," but also to reconquer Jerusalem from the Muslims and bring the Second Coming. After almost a year on the seas, tossed about by heavy storms and ravaged by disease and lack of food and water, the fleet found its way to India, which da Gama helped to conquer for Portugal. Yet, as Cliff points out, da Gama's men had arrived in India not just to acquire wealth; they were the new crusaders. They began as soon as they landed to push out the Muslim merchants and establish Christianity as the dominant religion. Da Gama's voyages, says Cliff, were the dividing line between the eras of Muslim ascendancyâthe Middle Agesâand of Christian ascendancyâthe modern age. Though occasionally digressive, Cliff's historical sketch opens new vistas on much-explored territory. 8 pages of color illus.; printed endpaper map.

July 1, 2011

Historian and Economist contributor Cliff (The Shakespeare Riots: Revenge, Drama and Death in Nineteenth Century America, 2007) presents Portugal's outreach to India as a deployment by a fundamentalist Christian monarchy against Islam.

The author offers shocking documentation that Vasco da Gama's voyages to India's east coast were not only aimed at the spice trade of the merchants whose annual, monsoon-driven convoys kept the European supplied from Venice. In addition, King Manuel's ambition "required India's rulers to switch their entire trade to the West and oust every last Muslim from their lands," just as his own kingdom and the neighboring Spanish monarchs were then doing to their Moorish and Jewish subjects. Scrupulous attention to coastal navigation was combined with overland exploration by undercover agents to investigate the structure of the trade routes. Both strands succeeded, but not completely—nobody was able to discover the mythical Prester John and his kingdom. For failing in this respect, Pedro Alvares Cabral, who mapped India's east coast and its ports, was disgraced on his return Portugal. Covilha, one of Manuel's spies, was afraid to return and was discovered, many years later, in Ethiopia. Superstition may have provided part of the fuel for the project, but there was nothing fantastical about the gunpowder and shot of Gama's cannons, and the brutality applied to the Zamorin of Calicut and his people on his next return. Throughout the narrative, Cliff examines the roots of many succeeding atrocities and massacres, all levers in the service of opening foreign markets to competition and securing what even then was called "fair trade."

A useful addition to a continuing lively discussion of Christianity and Islam, situated both in respect of religions and culture, as well as empires and trade.

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August 1, 2011
For most of the past six centuries, the voyage of Vasco da Gama to the western coast of India has been overshadowed by the discovery of the Americas by Columbus. Yet when da Gama returned to Portugal in 1499 with his ships laden with the riches of the Indies, it stirred more excitement than the exploits of Columbus, which had yet to bear full fruit. Da Gama had opened up the long-sought sea route to the Indies. Cliff effectively restores the luster of da Gama's achievement and provocatively reassesses the goals and significance of his expedition. Portuguese efforts to reach the Indies have generally been viewed as primarily a commercial venture designed to exploit the trade in spices and silks. Cliff asserts that the primary motive was the desire to outflank the aggressive Islamic powers, especially the Turks, who had seized the great Christian city of Constantinople in 1453. Cliff tells an often thrilling tale of adventure, but his elevation of its religious aspects will be disputed by other historians.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)