Decay or Defeat?: An Inquiry Into the Portuguese Decline in Asia, 1580-1645 (Studies in Overseas History, 1)

313 pp., illustrations maps, bibliography, index. In English with Dutch summary. includes errata sheet. Decay or Defeat? presents new answers to the question who or what caused the Portuguese decline in Asia. In the process, the author explores many of the myths that exist around the subject. The vicissitudes of the Portuguese shipping route to India are discussed against the background of the military and financial adventures of the Spanish Habsburg monarchs, who during the 1580-1640 period also ruled Portugal. During the Habsburg intermezzo the New Christian merchants in Lisbon played an important role in financing the Carreira da India and the Spanish troops in Flanders. The withdrawal of their financial support in 1628 had serious consequences for Lisbon. During the 1620s and 1630s political shifts in Asia damaged the existing alliances of the Portuguese, but worked in favour of the English and Dutch newcomers in Asia. The analysis of the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie as a commercial and privateering enterprise and a war machine shows why. The inquiry ends with the collapse of the Portuguese presence in Asia, which began with the restoration of Portuguese independence and the fall of Malacca in 1641. 0.0.…