 "Unwanted Neighbours")
Unwanted Neighbours
The Mughals, The Portuguese and their Frontier Zones
Jorge Flores
Oxford University Press
Rs 895, 328 pages
This meticulously researched study by an Italian historian tells the story of the interface between the Mughals and the Portuguese empires, focusing on the borderlands that, according to the author, “seem to have predominantly been areas of tension and separation”.
The Portuguese had established the Estado da’India, “the political and administrative framework of the Portuguese Empire in Asia,” in 1505 and made Goa their capital in 1510. Babar laid the foundation of the Mughal empire in 1526, and up to the end of Aurangzeb’s reign in 1707,
