Voyages out

Travel can narrow, as well as broaden, the mind, shown in the fates of two chroniclers of Portugal’s age of discovery

- Kathryn Hughes

Edward Wilson-Lee ends this exhilarating book wondering how it is that, as the world becomes global, the people in it have become insular. Indeed, he suggests, the further we travel, the more anxious and even aggressive we become when encountering those who look different from ourselves. To feel safe, we scuttle back to attitudes that are familiar, parochial and, in the long run, stifling. He likens it to “sitting in next-door rooms, pretending that we are in a world of our own”.

His passionate point is that it needn’t be like this, and to prove it he takes us back to 16th- century Portugal . For much of the high renaissance, Portugal was the primary conduit between Europe and the rest of the unfolding world. Merchants and missionaries were among the first from their continent to meet the sheikhs of Oman, the kings of West Africa and the emperors of China. They carr ied back their impressions to the motherland, painting a picture that set the parameters for global encounters over the next 500 years.