C.R. Boxer – Författare

In The Golden Age of Brazil, 1695–1750, historian C. R. Boxer explores one of the most dynamic yet turbulent periods in the Portuguese empire. With the discovery of vast gold reserves in Minas Gerais, Brazil became a cornerstone of Portugal’s Atlantic world, transforming its economy, society, and political order. Boxer’s richly detailed narrative traces the cascading effects of the gold rush—how sudden wealth fueled social mobility, intensified slavery and contraband, provoked conflicts like the Paulistas versus Emboabas, and drew the colony ever deeper into global trade networks. His analysis shows how Brazil’s prosperity was precariously balanced on forced labor, uneven development, and metropolitan extraction.At the same time, Boxer brings to life the cultural, religious, and urban landscapes that flourished during this era. He reconstructs the rhythms of colonial towns from Bahia to Ouro Preto, where planters, merchants, clergy, and miners clashed and collaborated. By situating Brazil within broader Atlantic currents—from West African slave routes to European wars—he demonstrates how colonial society bore the “growing pains” of integration into a world economy. More than a narrative of riches and power, this book offers a sober appraisal of the contradictions of empire: extraordinary opulence alongside deepening inequality, resilience amidst recurring unrest. It remains a landmark study for anyone seeking to understand the complexities of Brazil’s so-called golden age.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1962.

In The Golden Age of Brazil, 1695–1750, historian C. R. Boxer explores one of the most dynamic yet turbulent periods in the Portuguese empire. With the discovery of vast gold reserves in Minas Gerais, Brazil became a cornerstone of Portugal’s Atlantic world, transforming its economy, society, and political order. Boxer’s richly detailed narrative traces the cascading effects of the gold rush—how sudden wealth fueled social mobility, intensified slavery and contraband, provoked conflicts like the Paulistas versus Emboabas, and drew the colony ever deeper into global trade networks. His analysis shows how Brazil’s prosperity was precariously balanced on forced labor, uneven development, and metropolitan extraction.At the same time, Boxer brings to life the cultural, religious, and urban landscapes that flourished during this era. He reconstructs the rhythms of colonial towns from Bahia to Ouro Preto, where planters, merchants, clergy, and miners clashed and collaborated. By situating Brazil within broader Atlantic currents—from West African slave routes to European wars—he demonstrates how colonial society bore the “growing pains” of integration into a world economy. More than a narrative of riches and power, this book offers a sober appraisal of the contradictions of empire: extraordinary opulence alongside deepening inequality, resilience amidst recurring unrest. It remains a landmark study for anyone seeking to understand the complexities of Brazil’s so-called golden age.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1962.

Compelling stories of shipwreck, adventure, and death on the high seas, now back in print.The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were a time of great colonial expansion, marked by a mercantile frenzy of ships carrying merchants, aristocrats, missionaries, sailors, Inquisitors, botanists, and statesmen pursuing the spoils of empire. Among the narratives that chronicled these voyages, those of the Portuguese are unequaled. C. R. Boxer’s fascinating translations of famous Portuguese shipwreck stories detail the disasters and terrors plaguing the perilous sea trading route between Portugal and India. In the tradition of Homer, Virgil, Shakespeare, Defoe, and Poe, these dramatic stories of shipwreck-and those who lived to tell about it-represent existence and survival pushed to the limits. They describe disastrous turns of fate and miraculous rescues, heroism and cowardice, and offer the exhilaration and sheer emotive appeal of a tale of adventure well told. Often circulated in pamphlet form, these stories recounting the dangers and terrors of storm-tossed ocean voyages and the fate of castaways in distant lands were a popular genre, rife with compelling and often gory details. This first ever paperback edition includes a new translation of the tragic tale of Captain Manuel de Sousa SepÚlveda, shipwrecked with his family on the sands of Africa in 1552, the previous English versions of which have long been unavailable. Vividly descriptive and engrossing, these tales of selfishness, cruelty, despair, pirates, mayhem, and harrowing storms will captivate readers.

These articles deal with the functioning, and malfunctioning, of the Carreira da India, the round voyages made between Portugal and its possessions in India that began after Vasco da Gama had opened up the route round the Cape of Good Hope in 1497-99. On such voyages was the Portuguese colonial empire built, and these studies illustrate the conditions under which they operated - the ships, the crews, their navigation and their cargoes. For instance, details are given of the medicines carried on board and the hospital established at the way-station of Moçambique in an attempt to combat the perennial scourge of disease. The principal hazard, however, remained that of loss through shipwreck or enemy action, events all too common in the history of the Carreira, which are brought to life most vividly in the Portuguese literary classic, the História Trágico-Marítima; the early printed editions of such tales form the subject of two of the articles and the backdrop to much of the volume.

The relationship between God and Mammon forms a recurring theme in this volume, the third collection of Professor Boxer's articles to be published by Variorum. The previous two traced the Portuguese expansion through the Indian Ocean to South-East Asia, and in this one he moves on further, to the Far East, to deal with the China-Japan trade, based on the cities of Macao and Nagasaki. Yet there, as elsewhere, commerce was not disassociated from religion: not only were the missionaries so enthusiastically despatched to convert the Japanese dependant on the merchants for shipping, but the Jesuits, the principal of those missionaries, themselves played an active part in the trade, and the fortunes of both merchants and missionaries proved inextricably linked. In these articles the author describes the successes and tragedies of the Portuguese during the period when they dominated European activity in the Far East, and assesses their influence in what has come to be called the 'Christian century' in Japan.