Empire in the East
P
ortugal is a small country of moderate fertility. In the fifteenth
century its population numbered about 1 million and its chief
products and exports consisted of wine (port and, increasingly,
madeira—rich, head-turning beverages) and, rising fast, cane sugar.
Had the Portuguese of that era been able to anticipate the now classi
cal analysis of comparative advantage by David Ricardo, they would
have continued on this sensible path, minding their own business and
trading their natural produce for the manufactures of other lands. In
stead, they jumped the traces of rationality and turned their land into
a platform for empire. Portugal's far-flung network of dominion would
come to stretch three quarters of the way around the world, from
Brazil in the west to the Spice Islands and Japan in the Far East.
Such a leap beyond sense and sensibility is not unknown in history.
We shall see several examples later on; and indeed it is precisely this
kind of unreasonable initiative that endows history with uncertainty
and defeats prediction. But the Portuguese expansion is particularly
surprising, for Portugal had neither people nor means. Its population
was too small to send large numbers abroad; indeed one reason why
Portugal was so quick and eager to import slaves from Africa was to
make up for labor scarcity at home. Its material resources, specifically