Publisher's Synopsis
Towards the end of the sixteenth century, King Philip, ruler of the conjoint global empires of Spain and Portugal, received advice from many quarters, not least with regard to the attacks on the empires by other west European nations. Manoel de Andrada Castel Blanco, an obscure cleric who had worked in Brazil and Africa and who lamented the marine disasters and enemy incursions of the previous half-century, wrote c.1590 a tract of advice which has remained unpublished until the present annotated edition. His proposals for the defense of the imperial sea routes, which include references to localities as far apart as Bahia, Aden, Siam and Magellan Strait, make him one of the earliest global strategists. The tract, despite its patent defects of thought and presentation, gives the reader something of the "feel" of the period as it was experienced by those Iberians who, although outside the imperial administration, were capable of grasping the intense excitement of novel global venture and the inevitable accompanying anxieties and alarms.
