Sails and Shadows - How the Portuguese Opened the Atlantic and Launched the Slave Trade

"Sails and Shadows is the first account of Portuguese voyaging ever to incorporate data and insights from modern sciences as well as from aged texts. Based on an impressive engagement with original sources in multiple European languages, it should stand (for a very long time) as the definitive English-language account of its subject, which is an important one for world history, maritime history, and European history."--J. R. McNeill, author of Mosquito Empires

"Patricia Seed has produced an outstanding and truly original account of early Portuguese seaborne exploration down the west coast of Africa and to India. The book's great innovation is its deep and learned engagement with the growing field of climate history, which contextualizes Portuguese navigation, colonization, and settlement."--Jerry Brotton, author of Four Points of the Compass: The Unexpected History of Direction

About the author

Patricia Seed is Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine. She is the award-winning author of To Love, Honor, and Obey in Colonial Mexico; American Pentimento: The Invention of Indians and the Pursuit of Riches; and Ceremonies of Possession in Europe's Conquest of the New World, 1492-1640.

Product details

• Authors: Seed Patricia
• Publisher: University Presses
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 06.01.2026
• EAN: 9780520415874
• ISBN: 978-0-520-41587-4
• No. of pages: 278
• Illustrations: 14 b-w maps and 1 b-w figure
• Subjects: Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; Portugal, Ethnic Studies, European History, SCIENCE / History, HISTORY / World, HISTORY / Historical Geography, TRANSPORTATION / Navigation, TRANSPORTATION / Ships & Shipbuilding / History, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Race & Ethnic Relations, Navigation & Seamanship, Navigation and seamanship, Shipbuilding technology, engineering & trades, Shipbuilding technology, engineering and trades, HISTORY / Europe / Portugal