The Age of Reconnaissance

Readers Union, 1964. Cloth, 8vo,. xv, 364 pp, 80 ills, maps. The purpose of this book is to tell in outline the story of European geographical exploration, trade and settlement outside the bounds of Europe in the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ; to define the factors which stimulated expansion and made it possible; and to describe briefly the consequences which followed from it." - from the introduction. Contents: Part I. The Conditions for Discovery: Attitudes and Motives; Commercial Experience and Financial Backing; Ships and Shipbuilders; Seamen and Seamanship; Pilotage and Navigation; Charts and Maps; The Fighting Capacity of Men and of Ships. Part II. The Story of Discovery: Africa and the Indian Ocean; the Atlantic and the South Sea; the American Conquests; Atlantic Trade and Piracy; New Routes to the East; Fishing, Fur-Trading and Planting; Part III The Fruits of Discovery: The Land Empire of Spain; The Sea Empires of Portugal and Holland; The Plantations and Their Trades; Migrations and Dispersals; The Colonial Bureaucrats; The Rights of Conquerors and Conquered; Conclusion. Maps, Notes, Notes for Further Reading; Index. Covers slightly rubbed, front endpaper foxed, edges slightly spotted, Good in a torn dustwrapper which has lost the top 2 inches of the rear panel,.