"Malyn Newitt's aim simply has been 'to give a coherent account of a very complex topic for a new generation of students of European overseas expansion' and 'to restore a chronological perspective to the story of the empire.' To do this in less than three hundred pages is no means a task, but the end product lives up to the promise. Anyone familiar with the history of the Portuguese empire should have it on the shelve." --Itinerario