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.

About the Author

Cacey Farnsworth is an assistant professor of history/family history at Brigham Young University. He received his undergraduate degree in History Teaching from BYU (2010) and a master’s and PhD in history from the University of Florida (2015, 2019). His dissertation, “Atlantic Lisbon: From Restoration to Baroque Splendor” traces Portugal’s imperial shift toward Brazil after the loss of holdings in Africa and Asia and the consequent effects in Lisbon. His research was supported by a fellowship from the Fulbright and Instituto Camões programs. He has also published a chapter on the indigenous response to the Spanish conquest of Puerto Rico in Ida Altman and David Wheat, eds., The Spanish Caribbean & the Atlantic World in the Long Sixteenth Century (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2019). His research and teaching interests include family history, colonial Latin America, Iberia, and Atlantic history.

Book Details

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

Author: Cacey Bowen Farnsworth  

Publisher‏: ‎Penn State University Press; 1st edition

Publication Date: December 10, 2024

Series: Iberian Encounter and Exchange, 475–1755

Language‏: ‎English

Hardcover‏: ‎242 pp

Available @ Amazon.com