The First Age of the Portuguese Embassies, Navigations and Peregrinations to the Ancient Kingdoms of Cambay and Bengal (1500-1521)

UNCOMMON. Original 1968 HARDCOVER, no dust jacket (apparently as issued). Red cloth with gilt-stamped titles. Clean, unmarked pages. Cloth shows some shelf-rubbing but is sturdy and well-bound. "The First Age of the Portuguese Embassies, Navigations and Peregrinations to the Ancient Kingdoms of Cambay and Bengal (1500?1521) by Ronald Bishop Smith is a documentary history of early Portuguese expansion in western India and the Bay of Bengal. Rather than a continuous narrative, the book compiles and translates extracts from 16th-century Portuguese sources?letters, chronicles, and travel accounts?by writers such as João de Barros, Duarte Barbosa, and Gaspar Correa. It focuses on Portuguese diplomatic missions, voyages, and commercial ventures in the kingdoms of Cambay (in Gujarat) and Bengal during the first two decades of the 1500s. Key episodes include embassies to local rulers, encounters with regional powers, and naval expeditions linked to figures like Francisco de Almeida and Afonso de Albuquerque. The extracts describe political conditions, trade networks (especially textiles and spices), port cities such as Diu and Chittagong, and the cultural and religious diversity encountered by the Portuguese. Overall, the book provides a source-based view of how the Portuguese established early diplomatic and commercial footholds in South Asia, highlighting both cooperation and conflict with local states during the formative years of their Asian empire.".