:Portuguese Trade in Asia under the Habsburgs. 1580-1640

Abstract

a superbly researched work, rich in provocative and revisionist interpretations, whose sources, ideas, and references will be mined by many scholars, Boyajian adopts a comparative approach to study Portuguese commercial links to Asia, reassess crown involvement in trade 'vis a vis' private participation, place the Cape trade within the context of global trade, and throw newlight on Portuguese merchant families.--'Canadian Journal of History.' In 'Portuguese Trade in Asia under the Habsburgs' Boyajian reassesses the consequences of Portugal's flourishing private trade with Asia, including increased tensions between the growing urban merchant class and the still-dominant landed aristocracy. He also shows how Portuguese-Asian trade formed part of a global trading network that linked not only Europe and Asia, but also--for the first time--Asia, West Africa, Brazil, and Spanish America. And he argues that, contrary to previous scholarly opinion, nearly half of the Portuguese Asian trade was controlled by New Christians--descendants of Iberian Jews forcibly converted to Christianity in the 1490s.