Essays on maritime studies

VASCO DA GAMA AND THE LINKING OF EUROPE AND ASIA: Anthony Disney and Emily Booth — Editors; Oxford University Press, 219, Anna Salai, Chennai-600006. Rs. 645.

THIS COLLECTION of essays re-evaluates Vasco Da Gama's voyage, the circumstances surrounding it, its economic, cultural, political and religious implications, thereby challenging the view that Portugal made only a marginal impact on the world of the Indian Ocean. The general thrust of this work suggests that the Portuguese influenced maritime Asia significantly, and in many diverse aspects.

How was it that the Portuguese came to enter the Indian Ocean by sea at the close of the 15th century? Why did the breakthrough not occur in the reverse direction, especially given that the Indian Ocean had a much longer and richer tradition of maritime trade and long distance voyaging, than the Atlantic? Readers will find these basic questions addressed.

To assist readers in finding their way through the 31 contributions that comprise this collection, they have been arranged into five sections. The first brings together the four conference plenary lectures including Fernandez-Armesto's analysis of the Indian Ocean in World History, followed by Maurice Kriegal and Sanjay Subramanyan's paper which suggests that one of the explanations given for King Manuel's decision to proceed with the "enterprise of India", based primarily on a loose reading of the account in Gaspar Correia's Lendas da India, is in need of serious reconsideration.

Six papers are clustered into the second section, entitled "Trade and economic relations". John Everaert writes about the various northern Europeans — Flemings, Dutchmen, Germans and others — who played such an important, if often under-recognised, part in Portuguese trade and enterprises in Asia in the 16th century. Artur Teodoro de Matos and Paulo Lopes Matos reveal something of the richness and variety of Indian maritime trade in the early 17th century, through their analysis of a rare cargo manifest.

Michael Pearson describes and analyses the economic and cultural identity of the Swahili cities of the East African coast at the time of Gama's voyage. Om Prakash follows with a paper on the mainly private Portuguese trade with China and Japan. Roderich Ptak contributes a meticulous case study of the camphor trade at the time of the arrival of the Portuguese in East and South-East Asia. Then, moving from particular to the general, Anthony Reid's bold paper on a possible schematisation of European-Asian interaction, from Gama's time to the present, concludes the section.

The next section, "Religious and cultural interactions," opens with Couto on the illusive, informal society of Portuguese renegades in Asia and their behaviour patterns. It also includes Losada Soler's study of the linguistic contacts developed during Gama's first voyage and three papers on the activities of the Jesuites. The section on "Source, texts and representations'' contains six contributions. The final section encompasses the papers on "Empire politics and diplomacy''. Here Dauril Alden traces the circumstances pertaining to the suppression of the Jesuits in the Portuguese eastern dominions in 1760-64. Leonard Blusse, building on the classic work of C. R. Boxer, but writing from a more Asia-oriented standpoint, compares the tactics used by the Portuguese and the Dutch in trying to enter China and Japan. The focus of Dossal's paper is the remarkable persistence of Portuguese cultural influence and institutional forms in British Bombay, from language to land-ownership, and law to religion, long after it was handed over to the East India Company. Drawing mainly on Australian diplomatic reports, Robert Lee investigates the murky world of intrigue in Portuguese Timor at the start of the 1940's, showing why this obscure colony was of concern to the various combatants on the eve of the Pacific war.

Teotonic R de Souza's wide-ranging paper considers Asian responses to the arrival of the Portuguese, stressing the paradox of collaboration alongside resistance.

Douglas Wheeler looks at the diplomatic contest between India and Portugal over Goa in the years 1947-61, demonstrating the emblematic importance of the territory to the Salazar regime, the political background to the formation, operation, and eventual failure of the Portuguese. India Company of 1628-33 is the subject of Lorraine White's carefully researched paper.

The section then concludes with a challenging review by George Winius of the formation of the Estado da India, which he argues was largely the work of men on the spot, and accomplished in spite of, rather than because of the bungling leadership emanating from Lisbon.

G. J. SUDHAKAR

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