“Contrary to the prevailing idea that Portugal lies at the margins due to a disadvantaged economic positioning in the EU, that small country on the Atlantic coast was actually central in the making of modern Europe. That is, it was from ports such as Lisbon that the subjects of the Portuguese Christian kings, only a generation or two removed from the rule of the remains of the Umayaad Caliphate, sailed south hoping to circumvent the trade routes that snaked through the much wealthier and African and Asian kingdoms of the time. On their way to the Indian Ocean, they set up trading posts along the African coast that would eventually turn into outposts for the brutal European expansionism, enslavement, and resource extraction that would define the next 500 years. ...”
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