Description

By (author) Crowley, Roger; By (author) Crowley Roger

Short /annotation:
Drawing on extensive first-hand accounts, Crowley brings to life the exploits of an extraordinary band of conquerors – men such as Afonso de Albuquerque, the first European since Alexander the Great to found an Asian empire – who set in motion five hundred years of European colonisation and unleashed the forces of globalisation.

:

”A rare gift . . . The story he has to tell may be a thrilling one but not every historian could tell it so thrillingly.” Financial Times
”Magnificently rip-roaring history . . . Bursting with colour and excitement.” Dominic Sandbrook

As remarkable as Columbus and the conquistador expeditions, the history of Portuguese exploration is now almost forgotten. But Portugal”s navigators cracked the code of the Atlantic winds, launched the expedition of Vasco da Gama to India and beat the Spanish to the spice kingdoms of the East – then set about creating the first long-range maritime empire. In an astonishing blitz of thirty years, a handful of visionary and utterly ruthless empire builders, with few resources but breathtaking ambition, attempted to seize the Indian Ocean, destroy Islam and take control of world trade.

Conquerors is narrative history at its most vivid – an epic tale of navigation, trade and technology, money and religious zealotry, political diplomacy and espionage, sea battles and shipwrecks, endurance, courage and terrifying brutality. Drawing on extensive first-hand accounts, Crowley brings to life the exploits of an extraordinary band of conquerors – men such as Afonso de Albuquerque, the first European since Alexander the Great to found an Asian empire – who set in motion five hundred years of European colonisation and unleashed the forces of globalisation.

Biographical note:
Roger Crowley read English at Cambridge. He has had a varied career as a teacher and publisher and is the author of three books on the history of the Mediterranean. He lives in Gloucestershire and now writes full time. His website is www.rogercrowley.co.uk

Promotional headline:
The celebrated author of Empires of the Sea tells the remarkable story of how the tinycountry of Portugal set about exploring and conquering the world in the 16th Century.

Review quote: previous edition:
Fast-paced and vivid narrative . . . a fascinating account of the rise of an empire.

Review quote: previous edition:
In his previous studies of 15th- and 16th-century struggles between Christians and Ottomans for control of the Mediterranean, Crowley has shown a rare gift for combining compelling narrative with lightly worn academic thoroughness as well as for balancing the human with the geopolitical – qualities on display here. The story he has to tell may be a thrilling one but not every historian could tell it so thrillingly.

Review quote: previous edition:
Magnificently rip-roaring history of Portugal”s rise to world empire … Conquerors is a gloriously entertaining read … it reads like an epic, bursting with colour and excitement. Unlike many academics who have written about the age of European expansion, Crowley never wastes a syllable on post-colonial gobbledegook, but just cracks on with the action … prodigiously entertaining book.

Review quote: previous edition:
Crowley brings a gift for vivid (and gory) storytelling buttressed by a firm grasp of the political and religious dimensions of the time … Crowley”s pages burst with action … he opens the reader”s eyes to a now lost chapter in the western encounter with the lands of the East.

Review quote: previous edition:
Readers of Crowley”sprevious books will not be disappointed by this exciting tale of sea battles, land campaigns and shipwrecks … Crowley mak