C.R. Boxer writes that, taken in conjunction, the Portuguese and Spanish voyages of discovery in the fifteenth century form one of the watersheds of history, comparable to the twentieth-century conquest of space.
From 1565 until the year of Waterloo, great Spanish galleons continued to cross the Pacific, bearing cargoes of American silver. ‘This prodigious voyage’ took a heavy toll of life. Yet still (wrote a Chronicler) ‘the desire of gain prevails...’
C.R. Boxer describes how the Dutch East-India Company gave unity to the islands of Indonesia much as the English East-India Company laid the foundations of the British Raj—often unwittingly and by a series of gradual steps.
For nearly two hundred years Jesuit missionaries held a privileged position at the court of the Chinese Emperors, C.R. Boxer writes, where they laboured not only as fishers of men, but as astronomers, mathematicians, portrait-painters and skilful architects.
C.R. Boxer finds that the methods used - or alleged to have been used - by Portuguese proselytizers more than three hundred years ago, remain a “living issue in Ceylon politics.”
C.R. Boxer recalls “the time of the Flemings” (Tempo dos Flamengos), as the period of the Dutch occupation of Pernambuco province in Brazil used to be called.
For 444 years Goa has been ruled by the Portuguese; today their rule is challenged by the Republic of India. By C.R. Boxer.
C.R. Boxer examines the travels and writings of Robert Knox in a 17th century Buddhist kingdom.
C.R. Boxer profiles the naval adventures of the Netherlands' Tromp family - a thorn in the side of mid-17th century English maritime activity.
For over two centuries from 1641, Nagasaki – and the island of Dejima – was the only place in Japan open to foreigners. How were Europeans received there?
