Atlantic Crossroads in Lisbon’s New Golden Age, 1668–1750

Long dependent on the Asian spice trade, Portugal suffered serious setbacks during the period of political union with Spain (1580–1640), as the Dutch and others seized key regions and destroyed commercial monopolies. By 1668, the greatest hope for a renewed Portuguese empire lay to the west. This book examines the “Atlanticization” of Lisbon during the early modern era, investigating the social, economic, religious, and political evolution that took place in Portugal’s capital during a period of upheaval and transformation in Europe and in the Atlantic world.

In this book, Cacey Bowen Farnsworth shows how, between 1668 and 1750, Lisbon became a crossroads where colonial developments intermingled with metropolitan and global influences to produce something novel among European port capitals. Drawing from extensive primary and secondary sources from Portugal, Brazil, England, France, and Spain, Farnsworth lays out how Lisbon’s transformations were generated in commercial exchanges, especially the slave trade, as well as in the often-tense arrangements between the British and the Portuguese, and he shows how social, economic, cultural, and religious transformations made Lisbon a unique center of encounter.

Responding to valid criticisms of Atlantic history, Farnsworth’s history of early modern Lisbon demonstrates that historians do not always have to defer to a global lens of analysis. It is sure to be of value to any researcher interested in early modern Iberia, commerce, and globalism.