Conquerors - Roger Crowley

As
remarkable as Columbus and the conquistador expeditions, the history of
Portuguese exploration is now almost forgotten. But Portugal's
navigators cracked the code of the Atlantic winds, launched the
expedition of Vasco da Gama to India and beat the Spanish to the spice
kingdoms of the East - then set about creating the first long-range
maritime empire. In an astonishing blitz of thirty years, a handful of
visionary and utterly ruthless empire builders, with few resources but
breathtaking ambition, attempted to seize the Indian Ocean, destroy
Islam and take control of world trade.

Told with Roger
Crowley's customary skill and verve, this is narrative history at its
most vivid - an epic tale of navigation, trade and technology, money and
religious zealotry, political diplomacy and espionage, sea battles and
shipwrecks, endurance, courage and terrifying brutality. Drawing on
extensive first-hand accounts, it brings to life the exploits of an
extraordinary band of conquerors - men such as Afonso de Albuquerque,
the first European since Alexander the Great to found an Asian empire -
who set in motion five hundred years of European colonisation and
unleashed the forces of globalisation.