The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama

A revisionist account of Vasco da Gama, discoverer of the India sea route, 1497–99.

Sanjay Subrahmanyam (Author)

9780521646291, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 29 October 1998

428 pages, 30 b/w illus. 4 maps
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm, 0.64 kg

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

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 This book, based on a mass of published and unpublished sources in Portuguese and other languages, delineates Gama's career and social context, focusing on the delicate balance between 'career' and 'legend'.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.

Preface
1. Overture: bones of contention
2. The heritage of Santiago
3. To Calicut and back
4. The attempt to consolidate
5. The wilderness years
6. A career culminates
Finale: the judgements of posterity
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], European history [HBJD]