Malyn Newitt

For two hundred and seventy years, the House of Braganza provided the kings and queens of Portugal. During a period of momentous change, from 1640 to 1910, this influential family helped to establish Portuguese independence from their powerful Spanish neighbors and saved the monarchy and government from total destruction by the marauding armies of Napoleon. The Braganzas also ruled the vast empire of Brazil from 1822 to 1889, successfully creating a unified nation and preventing the country from splitting into small warring states. In his fascinating reappraisal of the Braganza dynasty, Malyn Newitt traces the rise and fall of one of the world's most important royal families. He introduces us to a colorful cast of innovators, revolutionaries, villains, heroes, and charlatans, from the absolutist Dom Miguel to the "Soldier King" Dom Pedro I, and recounts in vivid detail the major social, economic, and political events that defined their rule. Featuring an extensive selection of artworks and photographs, Newitt's book offers a timely look at Britain's "oldest ally" and the role of monarchy in the early modern European world.

The Rise and Fall of the Ruling Dynasties of Portugal and Brazil, 1640-1910

The Braganzas

M. D. D. Newitt

Dudley Maurice Newitt

This book summarizes five hundred years of the history of the societies that exist within the area that became Mozambique in 1891. It also takes the story up to the present, including the War of Liberation and Mozambique after independence. It is work of major scholarship that will appeal to experts and students alike.

A History of Mozambique

The Zambezi is the fourth-longest river in Africa, and one of the continent’s principal arteries of movement, migration, conquest and commerce. In this book, historian Malyn Newitt quotes rarely used Portuguese sources that throw vivid light on the culture of the river peoples and their relations with the Portuguese creole society of the prazos. Hitherto unused manuscript material illustrates Portuguese and British colonial rule over the people of the long-lived Lunda kingdoms, and the Lozi of the Barotse Floodplain. The Zambezi became a war zone during the ‘Scramble for Africa’, the struggle for independence and the civil wars that followed the departure of colonial powers. Recent history has also seen the river’s wild nature tamed by the introduction of steamers and the building of bridges and dams. These developments have changed the character of the waterway, and impacted–often drastically–the ecological systems of the valley and those settled along its course. The Zambezi traces the history of the communities that have lived along this great river; their relationship with the states formed on the high veldt; and the ways they have adapted to the vagaries of the Zambezi itself, with its annual floods, turbulent rapids and dramatic gorges.

A History

The Zambezi

This comprehensive history traces the evolution of modern Mozambique, from its early modern origins in the Indian Ocean trading system and the Portuguese maritime empire to the fifteen-year civil war that followed independence and its continued after-effects. Though peace was achieved in 1992 through international mediation, Mozambique's remarkable recovery has shown signs of stalling. Malyn Newitt explores the historical roots of Mozambican disunity and hampered development, beginning with the divisive effects of the slave trade, the drawing of colonial frontiers in the 1890s and the lasting particularities of the provinces. Following the nationalist guerrillas' victory against the Portuguese in 1975, these regional divisions resurfaced in a civil war pitting the south against the north and center. The settlement of the early 1990s is now under threat from a revived insurgency, and the ghosts of the past remain. This book seeks to distill this complex history, and to understand why, twenty-five years after the Peace Accord, Mozambicans still remain among the poorest people in the world. -- from book flap.

A Short History of Mozambique

This is the first history of Mozambique from the 15th century to the present. The Mozambican people have had contact with Muslim and European traders for nearly 1000 years, and their history is given a unity by the influence of commerce and seaborne trade. Indeed Mozambique itself consists of a series of ancient sea and river ports with their commercial hinterlands.

The Portuguese in West Africa, 1415–1670 brings together a collection of documents - all in new English translation - that illustrate aspects of the encounters between the Portuguese and the peoples of North and West Africa in the period from 1400 to 1650. This period witnessed the diaspora of the Sephardic Jews, the emigration of Portuguese to West Africa and the islands, and the beginnings of the black diaspora associated with the slave trade. The documents show how the Portuguese tried to understand the societies with which they came into contact and to reconcile their experience with the myths and legends inherited from classical and medieval learning. They also show how Africans reacted to the coming of Europeans, adapting Christian ideas to local beliefs and making use of exotic imports and European technologies. The documents also describe the evolution of the black Portuguese communities in Guinea and the islands, as well as the slave trade and the way that it was organized, understood, and justified.

A Documentary History

The Portuguese in West Africa, 1415–1670

· Noted historian of the Lusophone world Malyn Newitt offers an expansive account of how exploration, imperialism and migration shaped the Portuguese and their global diaspora. · Uncovers the far-flung histories of Portuguese emigration -including Bermuda, Guyana and Hawaii as well as Brazil and Angola · Interwoven within this global history are the lives of Sephardic Jews and African slaves ...

An Alternative History of Portugal and the Portuguese

Emigration and the Sea

Despite its modest size, Portugal has played a major part in the development of Europe and the modern world. In Portugal in European and World History Malyn Newitt offers a fresh appraisal of Portuguese history and its role in the world—from early Moorish times to the English Alliance of 1650–1900 and through the country’s liberal revolution in 1974. Newitt specifically examines episodes where Portugal was a key player or innovator in history. Chapters focus on such topics as Moorish Portugal, describing the cultural impact of contact with the Moors—one of the oldest points of contact between Western Europe and Islam; the opening up of trade with western Africa; and the explorations of Vasco de Gama and the evolution of Portugal as the first commercial empire of modern times. Newitt also examines Portugal’s role in the Counter-reformation, in Spain’s wars in Europe, and in the Anglo-Portuguese alliance. Finally, Newitt analyzes the fall of fascism and the Portuguese decolonization within the context of larger global empires and movements. This new account of a country with a rich historyshows how Portugal has moved from being the last colonial power to one of the most enthusiastic proponents of the modern European ideal.

Portugal in European and World History

Philip J. Havik

In 2004, a conference was held at King’s College London to commemorate the centenary of the birth of Charles Boxer. The theme of the conference was the development of the culturally mixed ‘Portuguese’ societies in Asia, Africa and America, which reflected Boxer’s own interest in the social history of Portugal’s overseas empire. Although the conference papers were published by Bristol University, this volume is long out of print and the outstanding quality of many of the contributions has made it necessary for this collection to be republished. Portuguese overseas expansion over a period of five centuries led to the formation of many mixed or creole communities which drew culturally not only on Portugal, but also on indigenous societies. This cross-cultural interaction gave rise to a creole ‘Portuguese’ identity that in many cases outlasted the formal empire itself. Reflecting upon the main tenets of Boxer’s work, this collection provides a broad geographical perspective upon areas of Portuguese presence in Guinea, Cape Verde, Angola, São Tomé, Brazil and Goa. The chapters cover a wide range of social strata, including plantation slave and maroon communities, private settler-traders and pirates, indigenous trade-diasporas, and Luso-African, Luso-Brazilian and Afro-Brazilian groups, as well as the formation of Creole elites against the background of shifting racial, gender, ethnic, linguistic and religious boundaries. As such, this collection represents an exercise in ‘subaltern’ history which shows that the informal social relations were often more important in the long term than the formal structures of empire.

Creole Societies in the Portuguese Colonial Empire

A History of Portuguese Overseas Expansion 1400-1668 provides an accessible survey of how the Portuguese became so influential during this period and how Portuguese settlements were founded in areas as far flung as Asia, Africa and South America. Malyn Newitt examines how the ideas and institutions of a late medieval society were deployed to aid expansion into Africa and the Atlantic islands, as well as how, through rivalry with Castile, this grew into a worldwide commercial enterprise. Finally, he considers how resilient the Portuguese overseas communities were, surviving wars and natural disasters, and fending off attacks by the more heavily armed English and Dutch invaders until well into the 1600s. Including a detailed bibliography and glossary, A History of Portuguese Overseas Expansion 1400-1668 is an invaluable textbook for all those studying this fascinating period of European expansion

Malyn Newitt

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