The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama - Hardcover

Subrahmanyam, Sanjay

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521470722 ISBN 13: 9780521470728

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1997

Synopsis

Vasco da Gama (?1469–1524) is well known as one of a generation of discoverers, along with Magellan, Cabral, and Columbus. Yet little is known about his life, or about the context within which he 'discovered' the all-sea route to India in 1497–99. This book, based on a mass of published and unpublished sources in Portuguese and other languages, delineates Gama's career and social context, focusing on the delicate balance between 'career' and 'legend'. The book addresses broad questions of myth-building and nationalism, while never losing sight of Gama himself.

About this title

Review:

When Vasco da Gama (c.1469-1524) became the first known European to travel to India by sea in 1498, his place in the pantheon of Great Explorers of the Renaissance seemed assured. Rivalled only by Columbus and his landfall in the Americas six years earlier, da Gama was acclaimed throughout Europe, and alongside his new title of Admiral, he proceeded to amass a small personal fortune as well as return to India on two subsequent occasions before his death there in 1524.

However, as Sanjay Subrahmanyam points out in his magisterial biography The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama, da Gama's legacy was far from straightforward. Carefully reassessing published and unpublished sources on his life and career, Subrahmanyam, an expert in the field of Portuguese trade and exploration, weaves a fascinating account of the political intrigue which led to da Gama taking charge of the first fateful expedition to India in 1497. The book follows the pragmatic and often ruthless subsequent career of da Gama, persistently overturning more romantic accounts of one of the heroes of Portuguese history, and offering a wonderfully rich contextual history of the Lusitanian empire at its zenith.

Reasserting the importance of da Gama's place within world history, while also sceptical of the myths which have built up around the man himself, Subrahmanyam's biography is destined to become a classic study not only of da Gama, but also of the ways in which myth- making creates the figure of a national hero. A fine biography. -- Jerry Brotton

Review:

'... exhaustively documented, and dense with information.' The Times Literary Supplement

'Subrahmanyam is an exemplary scholar. His knowledge of the subject is unsurpassed.' The Sunday Times

' ... a book notable as much for its formidable scholarship as for the boldness and breadth of its conception'. Cultura

' ... an outstanding biography ... which makes it easy to follow Vasco Da Gama's career'. Business Standard

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0521470722
• ISBN 13: 9780521470728
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 424