The Portuguese Empire, 1415-1808: A World on the Move – A.J.R. Russell Wood
September 6, 2017 – Started ReadingSeptember 6, 2017 – Started ReadingReview For the most part this book reads like a collection of descriptive lists – which flora and fauna went where, who explored or what or established relations where. There’s a lot of surface detail, which is good for an introduction, but chapters trying to move beyond such descriptions were disappointing; the chapter on the spread of ideas and mores had not much to say about its topic. There was no in depth investigations of the ways cultures encountered and interacted with each other beyond cataloging that exchanges happened and what they were. A good primer if you’re interested in the cataloging of Portuguese exchange with the rest of its global network, but if you’re looking for more in depth examinations of these relationships you’ll have to go elsewhere. I never felt the sense of motion the title implies.
