Dated – originally published 1949 with second and third editions in 1959 and 1966. I expected something like Guns, Germs, and Steel, but The Establishment of the European Hegemony is more about conflicts between European nations over the New World and southeast Asia rather than conflicts between Europeans and natives.

Author J.H. Parry starts his explanation with Prince Henry the Navigator and his nautical school, arguing that improvements in charts, shipbuilding and naval gunnery got the Europeans started on global conquest. This is also an exception to the main theme of conflict between Europeans, discussing the Portuguese inroads on native Indian states (for more on that, see The Last Crusade)

However, once all the European powers are into the act, Parry’s story is about battles between English, Dutch, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. There’s some interesting discussion of national characteristics. One of Parry’s observations is that all the nations but the English had their colonies under fairly strict control of the national government back in Europe (the English tried to this this as well, but with less success). The English also paid much less attention to religious purity; the Spanish and French insisted that colonial settlers be good Catholics. The Dutch and French looked to making a profit off colonial ventures; the Spanish were concerned with saving souls.

Parry’s discussion of the slave trade is dispassionate. He notes the paradox in the Spanish colonies; the Spanish government was solicitous for the welfare of natives, but not for imported slaves, explaining that the natives were considered subjects of the Crown of Spain and therefore had some civil rights, but slaves were legally purchased commodities. (See The Rise of the Spanish American Empire) Of interest is the Spanish rigid adherence to Mercantilist economic theory; all slave cargoes had to be shipped from a Spanish port – meaning that they had to be taken from Africa to Spain, then back across the Atlantic. Since this was a perishable cargo, the trade went to English, French and Dutch smugglers rather than Spanish ships. Parry also makes a claim I hadn’t heard before; that a lot of overcrowding on slave ships was due to contractors in Africa adding their own cargo for personal profit; I suppose a slave dealer in (for example) Bristol could answer objections of inhumanity by showing that his ships theoretically had adequate space, food, and water – but his factors on the African coast would add their own illicit cargo. I don’t know to what extent this is true.

A worthwhile read with some interesting insights. No illustrations, and all the references are old. ( )