A historian re-examines India’s past through its relationship with the Indian Ocean in this book

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The entry of the Portuguese into India has been termed many things – a seaborne empire (by CR Boxer), a world on the move (by AJR Russel-Wood), the first colonial empire and much more. A question that many historians have asked is why it was the Portuguese, the one southern European nation without access to the Mediterranean, that embarked on the voyages of exploration? The standard answer, which was reported to be what Vasco da Gama said when asked in Calicut why he had come there, was that they were in search of “Christians and spices”. While the spread of...