The Portuguese in the Age of Discovery 1340-1665 (Men-at-Arms) (Men-at-Arms, 484)

As with the vast majority of this series of Osprey "fighting men" books, this one is excellent. Nowadays, the large Portuguese contribution to the Age of Discovery is often overlooked, but that wasn't always the case. Although the Portuguese were in South America, mostly in Brazil, their ships and explorers ranged far and wide to Africa and Asia as well. Before that, Portugal had to fight a war with Spain to establish her own national identity. It's all here in this excellently illustrated history of the three-century era when Portugal rivaled Spain for glory and gold in parts of the "New World", using her ships, cannon, and lance-wielding soldiers on horseback to create overseas colonies for the King.Besides the color plates of Portuguese soldiers, prints of paintings and photos of artifacts and old forts, this book also contains sketch plans of Portuguese fortifications built during this historical era from locations all over the world. Very interesting material.I learned the Iberian hero Loyola was a Portuguese (not Spanish) knight and military officer. Loyola, of course founded the Church's Jesuit order after sustaining a crippling wound in battle. This book is full of interesting tidbits such as that one.

A typically competent Osprey "cliff notes" of the topic.Other posters argue that the book could have been more detailed and more on point if the time period had begun a little later (1415 or so) and ended a little earlier (after Al-Qasr Al-Kabeer in 1478). Probably. There's also the usual David Nicolle Islamic love fest to put up with, but still, a worthwhile treatment.

I thought this entry in the osprey series was actually quite good especially dealing with one of the first colonial European powers in history

this product is a brief document and is an accurate account of the subject. I would suggest this to anyone.

It's great book with more info about Portuguese the age of discovery and a lot of photos and illustrations and maps

First of all I need to congratulate Osprey for finally publishing a book specific about this subject. As a Portuguese myself and a Historian, I can assure that the age of discoveries is an extremely important period for Portugal and even Europe. I thought I haven't the "nationalist" bug before I read this book. I read many titles written by scholars that portrayed negative characteristics of Portuguese expansion, but done with logic and without omitting facts or trying to make victims, or even without trying to imply that the Portuguese were the single factor that led to nefarious events. Unfortunately I discovered that I do have a sense of "National Pride" because, although I admire a lot Professor Nicolle works, I felt profoundly annoyed by this book. For that reason I gave a three stars and not a lower grade, I fully realized that Bias might be affecting my judgment.But Bias is precisely what Professor Nicolle, a wonderful medievalist and the greatest expert I know about medieval Islam military subjects, suffer while writing this booklet. Almost every page the Portuguese are depicted as negatively possible, although their behavior wasn't that different from other contemporaries, Christian, Hindu or Muslim. They are the horrible slavers, the violent newcomers; the author forgetting that they were simply replacing themselves as the new slave traders. The Mediterranean, Indic as well as Africa were in the slave routes of Islamic powers for centuries before the Portuguese. Make no mistake; I'm not saying that Islamic nations were more prone to slavery! They simply got there first! There is no moral advantage here, but reading this booklet a reader might have the impression that the Portuguese invented slavery. Clearly the author always presents the Islamic world in the best light possible, even conveniently omitting one or even a hundred facts.Just as an example of the above mentioned bias, although the author doesn't even acknowledge in the chronology dozens of important battles, he finds space to refer that viceroy Nuno da Cunha murdered the Sultan of Gujerat (Bahadur Shah, by the way, the author didn't even mentioned it) during parley. But he forgot to mention that violence during parleys were unfortunately quite common like the Portuguese ambassadors to Mallaca sent to King Viantana found out (they were boiled and their remains sent to dogs). Also the complexity of Gujerat and Dio politics can only be understood after quite some research like the one in the book Portuguese and the Sultanate of Gujarat, 1500-1573 by Kuzhippalli Skaria Mathew.That research wasn't obviously done, and although an expert in medieval Islam, the author isn't at ease with the period in question. Otherwise he wouldn't make the terrible first page blunder where he states that Saint Ignatius of Loyola was a Portuguese Knight (probably my Spanish friends are now foaming with rage), he even doesn't get the school of painting right!That isn't just a "mistake". Not knowing that information is serious. Would you continue to read a book on Rome by a Celtic expert who on the first page say that Zoroaster was a Roman philosopher and riddled every single page with Celtic influences on Roman culture, dress, weaponry (never mentioning that influences weren't' one way only)? Well, that's precisely what the author done here. In every page he manages to describe Islamic influences on the Portuguese (but strangely doesn't even mention in the main text one of the most important; one of the Portuguese favorite shields was the "adarga"; it only appears on the plates reference to that shield), but fails to mention a single European influence on the Muslim world (and oh, there were so many).There are large amount of scholarly material regarding most of the dozens of main naval and land engagements that defined the period, but the author doesn't used any. He preferred to give small snapshots of disconnected events. Although the Portuguese were largely successful in conquering and keeping trade routes right in the middle of enemy territory far from supply lines and extremely limited manpower (which the author acknowledges), the reader will be surprised how that was possible! Also states that the victories were due to the superiority of Portuguese modern arms, which is completely correct regarding African tribes...but how does that explain the immense number of victories over large Ottoman forces (maybe the most powerful nation in the late XV th early XVI th century)? They were also very well equipped and trained. There is almost no mention of one of the greatest naval commanders ever, Afonso de Albuquerque (with the exception of commenting his brutality, which although true, it isn't his most remarkable characteristic at all)!Other failings include the time period of this book. It's farfetched choosing the Battle of Salado in 1340 to start the "Age of discoveries", and the chronology goes even into an earlier period - 1250! In such a minute book it's quite a waste of space.The author done a good job using the Pastrana tapestries as a source, but there is another major source that isn't even mentioned, the Nuno Gonçalves workshop paintings like "Painéis de São Vicente de Fora" which represent brilliantly the arms, armor and dress of all social strata in the XVth century.The plates by Gerry and Sam Embleton are very good, and I must commend their very good interpretations of the soldiers of those periods. They include: Portuguese warriors between 1340-1380; the invasion of the Canary islands (early 15th century); Exploration and slave raiding (mid 15th century); Invasion of Morocco (late 15th century); Ethiopia (Early 16th century); Brazil (16th century); Indian Ocean (late 16th century, early 17th century); Southern Africa (17th century). Although I believe that at least one portrayed figure should represent the typical Portuguese long beard of the first half of 16th century; none is shown.Maybe this book is interesting to raise awareness of these particular time period and events, the art is good, some conclusions by the author are accurate, the internal photographs are mostly interesting and valuable. The author was constrained by the limited dimension of this book for such a long time span and geographical dimension, and this was certainly a hard challenge. I will continue to admire and respect Professor Nicolle work, but he should team up with experts when leaving his usual field of study.

This book is an interesting idea, which will enable readers to know more about the Portuguese discoveries, a key period of the development on mankind.It has however some basic mistakes, perhaps due to poor research that affects the value of the work: It starts on page 3, when the author presents us with a photo of St. Ignatius of Loyola, stating that he was a Portuguese knight. That is not correct, Loyola was born in the Basque Country (Spain), in Loiola (Azpeitia) and the Society of Jesus was founded in 1534, and recognized by The Holy See in 1540. In page 22, Nicolle writes that Nuno Álvares Pereira, Constable of the Portuguese army in the late 14th century, was married, but did not consummate his marriage. This is false; Nuno Álvares Pereira had three children from his marriage, including one daughter that was married to an illegitimate son of King João I.Factual errors like these ones could and should be avoided.

Informative and well researched.

Ce livre aborde l'organisation militaire portugaise à l'âge des découvertes , ce qui inclut aussi pour partie la guerre d'indépendance vis à vis de l'Espagne. Comme c'est un Osprey, c'est court mais cela peut servir de point d'entrée pour poursuivre par d'autres ouvrages souvent malheureusement en portugais.

mes remerciements pour ce numéro de man at arms qui décris admirablement cette période de l'histoire du portugal ainsi que les armées de ce royaume qui ont permis la conquête de son empire. encore merci.

One shouldn't write on subjects one does not even begin to understand. Mr. Nicolle's text is full of misconceptions, factual errors, historical blunders and misprints. If he actually read some of the suggested bibliography he'd be more accurate. The whole thing is appalling: it's hard to understand the text flow as dates and facts are superimposed, lacking sequence and soundness and referring things as military organization, recruitment and weaponry simply out of context; Pictures often show "real" objects from the collection of a questionable local collector; strategy & tactics are simply ludicrous. Really, we weren't used to such low quality standards from Osprey. Oh and Mr. Nicolle also feels he can translate poetry and simply misinterpret the meaning of Camões grand epic poem, The Lusiads; even William Julius Mickle back in 1877 did a better job.Sorry to say this but this book is a load of rubbish.