Conquerors: How Portugal Seized the Indian Ocean and Forged the First Global Empire
Roger Crowley

Book Reviews

• "  Fast-paced and vivid…a fascinating account of the rise of an empire ."
  BBC History Magazine
• "An impressive history of global clashes, religious zealotry, and economic triumph."
  Kirkus
• "Fast-paced and vivid narrative...a fascinating account of the rise of an empire."
  BBC History Magazine
• "…magnificently rip-roaring history of Portugal’s rise to world empire…Conquerors is a gloriously entertaining read…it reads like an epic, bursting with colour and excitement. Unlike many academics who have written about the age of European expansion, Crowley never wastes a syllable on post-colonial gobbledegook, but just cracks on with the action…Crowley makes a powerful case that it was the Portuguese, not the Spanish (and still less the British), who built the world’s first truly global empire…this prodigiously entertaining book.."
  Sunday Times
• "The story he has to tell may be a thrilling one but not every historian could tell it so thrillingly…"
  Financial Times
• "The historian Roger Crowley promises: “a long-range epic of navigation, trade and technology, money and crusade, political diplomacy and espionage, sea battles and shipwrecks, endurance, reckless courage and extreme violence”. His pulsating narrative does exactly that."
  The Times
• "...a fast-moving and highly readable narrative."
  History Today
• "....the latest in his series of vivid Boy’s Own-style narrative histories about the great military, naval and religious conflics of the early modern age…readers of Crowley’s previous books will not be disappointed by this exciting tale of sea battles, land campaigns and shipwrecks..Crowley makes a good case for reclaiming Portugal’s significance as forger of the first global empire."
  Daily Telegrah
• "hugely entertaining narrative, which covers the short period from 1488 to 1516 with enormous gusto."
  Sunday Times
• "A darting account . . . Crowley vividly captures the crusading spirit."
  Literary Review
• "Roger Crowley tells the story with style. It is a classic ripping yarn, packed with excitement, violence and cliffhangers. Its larger-than-life characters are at once extraordinary and repulsive, at one moment imagining the world in entirely new ways and at the next braying with delight over massacring entire cities."
  New York Times
• "[A] cinematic account . . . Crowley brings a gift for vivid (and gory) storytelling buttressed by a firm grasp of the political and religious dimensions of the time . . . Crowley’s pages burst with action; he is a fine writer."
  National
• "Roger Crowley promises “a long-range epic of navigation, trade and technology, money and crusade, political diplomacy and espionage, sea battles and shipwrecks, endurance, reckless courage and extreme violence”. His pulsating narrative, which describes sea fights, sieges and shipwrecks, does exactly that ."
  Sunday Times
• "History on a grand scale grippingly told and vividly drawn ."
  Mail on Sunday
• ".a great seafaring tale, and a shameful chapter in world history.... Crowley is a master at re-creating battles at sea, and Conquerors is a riveting tale  but maybe not one for the faint of heart..."
  Dallas Morning News
• "Crowley's history benefits from the voluminous correspondence of powerful captains as well as the diaries of ordinary sailors. He uses this rich source material to imbue events now half a millennium distant with incredible dramatic immediacy.... Crowley's interpretations are nuanced and fair; he admires the many instances of Portuguese bravery and curiosity on the voyages. But cruelty and greed are ubiquitous and impossible to ignore. In a rare but piercing moment of self-knowledge, even Albuquerque doubted the justness of his deeds."
  Christian Science Monitor