Perceptions of the earliest stages of interaction between European nations and the indigenous peoples of Africa, from the beginnings of European maritime expansion in the fifteenth century to the nineteenth century, are easily clouded by consciousness of the subsequent imposition of European rule over almost the entire African continent. There has, arguably, been a tendency to read back into earlier periods the military and political dominance which became manifest in the European Partition of Africa at the end of the nineteenth century. The temptation is, perhaps, especially strong in relation to the history of the Atlantic slave trade, which appears so obviously damaging to the African societies involved that it is readily assumed that their participation in it must have been somehow coerced. Although strongest in popular perceptions, this tendency has been reflected in the work of some academic historians also: perhaps most emphatically in the general survey of Afro-European commercial relations by the late Walter Rodney, which remains probably the most widely read book on African history. There we are told, for example, that ‘From the beginning, Europe assumed the power to make decisions within the international trading system […] Above all, European decision-making power was exercised in selecting what Africa should export – in accordance with European needs.’ Primarily, according to Rodney, this was a question of disparity of economic power; but ‘as a last resort’ armed force could be used ‘to ensure the pursuit of favourable policies in the dependent areas’.

‘One does not write history with value judgements.’ Van Leur made this remark, countering the ‘Dutch refrain’ sung by Godée Molsbergen, which indicted the corruption of the VOC-servants as a cause of the Company's downfall. Van Leur explained that the standard for a modern officialdom was only created with the Napoleonic state and ‘it was therefore anachronistic to apply this standard to the 18th century’. Criticism of the integrity of the Company servants in this century is a post facto criticism. But if history cannot be written with value judgements, it cannot do without any judgements at all. Van Leur judged ‘the achievements of a Hartingh, a Von Hohendorff, a Mossel, a Van der Parra, and, on the Indonesian side, of a Mangkubumi, a Mas Sahid, a Cakraningrat certainly on par with those of Speelman, a Van Goens, and a Aru Palakka’.

J.C. van Leur was not very kind to his fellow historians in 1940 when he addressed the Historical Section of the Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences, reviewing the fourth volume of the Geschiedenis van Nederlandsch Indië by E.C. Godée Molsbergen. The gist of his talk, entitled ‘On the Eighteenth Century as a Category in Indonesian History’, was that colonial historical studies in the Netherlands and in the Netherlands East Indies were of a fairly parochial nature. For Van Leur, who was well acquainted with social and economic historical theory, it was not difficult to criticize the traditional approach of Godée's study of the eighteenth century. He pointed out that it made no sense to use the eighteenth century as a category in Asian history. The reverse in fact was true, he argued, as from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, Asian civilizations were characterized by a steady continuity. Nowadays many historians would agree with Van Leur's point of view, except for his refutation of the eighteenth century as a category in Asian history. The eighteenth century is now generally regarded as a period of change in many parts of Asia.

Like other decorative and aromatic woods, sandalwood has been in continuous and apparently insatiable demand throughout Asia since the earliest times of which there is any written record and especially in India and in China, where, during periods of prosperity, the consumption of exotic woods reached enormous proportions. Sandalwood was used as a cosmetic and perfume and in medicinal preparations, for the making of all manner of objects from fans, boxes and religious images to beds, couches and chests, and, above all, for burning as incense. It was exported to China and India from several Indonesian islands, includingjava, Borneo, Sulawesi and the Lesser Sunda Islands, especially Sumba, which was known to the Portuguese as the Island of Sandalwood, and Timor, where it was believed that the finest and most fragrant sandalwood was to be found.

The historiography with which most of us interact outside our own country or area of expertise is predominantly western and primarily in English. Although increasingly diverse in authorship, this historiography continued to build on traditions and sources which were developed in a less universalist age. It is not surprising the find that the period (roughly mid-seventeenth to mid-eighteenth centuries) in which most independent countries of eastern Asia sought to disengage from the European-dominated world economy is poorly understood or appreciated. I am conscious of the danger that my own recent work on the Southeast Asian ‘Age of Commerce’ may unintentionally reinforce negative images of those states which reacted to the traumas of the seventeenth century by decreasing their interaction with European traders.

Is history science or art? This is a problem which has been on people's minds for more than a century and certainly it is an interesting question. But within the framework of this contribution it is not really important, for, whether one practises art history or history of science, one faces the same problem. On the one hand such a history is first and foremost a history of the work and achievements of individuals. A history of science which does not deal with the work of Copernicus, Newton and Einstein is as useless as a history of art in which Rembrandt, Rubens and Michelangelo do not figure. Art and history are and will remain foremost the work of individuals of genius. On the other hand it is also true that a history of art or science which confines itself exclusively to a series of sketches of individuals and their work is not satisfactory either. Artists and scientists do not work within a vacuum. As one discerns tendencies and trends in art, likewise within the field of science one finds schools and paradigms. In order to understand works of art and science we have to look closely at influences and examples, at the time-spirit, the spiritual climate, et cetera.

The period from the fifteenth century to the end of the eighteenth century witnessed the creation, expansion, contraction, and fall of empires, enhanced and expanded communications, creation and growth – as measured by volume, range and intensity – of trading diasporas, diffusion of major religions far beyond their points of origin, intercontinental and transoceanic dissemination of flora and fauna, major movements – both coerced and voluntary – of population, growing technological sophistication, and advanced in humankind's knowledge of natural, earth, and planetary sciences. It also witnessed religious strife, conquest and war, decimation of populations through disease and hunger, and continued subjugation and oppression of groups of people. Taken by themselves, none of these aspects had been absent before this period and many had manifested themselves, albeit in vastly differing degrees of intensity on a very broad spectrum, on the major landmasses of the world.

In this year marking the sexcentenary of the birth of Prince Henry, known erroneously to the English speaking world as ‘the Navigator’, and the 450th anniversary of the Portuguese arrival in Japan, it is fitting to take stock of what has been achieved and what remains concerning research on Portuguese overseas history. In November 1969 a conference was held at the Newberry Library in Chicago to ‘stimulate in the United States scholarly interest in research on Brazil's colonial past’. In November 1978 an International Seminar on Indo-Portuguese History was held in Goa occasioned by ‘an awareness of a relative stagnation in the field of Indo-Portuguese historical studies, especially in India’. This was prompted by the feeling of a dearth of new interpretations, shortage of studies in English, and neglect of political history, biography and social and economic history. Whereas the tone of the Newberry Library meeting was upbeat as to what junior scholars were achieving, and Charles Boxer pointed with pride to scholarly accomplishments since 1950, by 1984 a lecture to mark the occasion of the centennial of the American Historical Association noted grounds for concern regarding studies in the United States on colonial Brazil and this situation has deteriorated further during the decades of the 80s and early 90s. By way of contrast, in 1981 Charles Boxer noted the vitality of the Estado da India in its broadest geographical meaning as a subject for historical research by Portuguese and how ‘after years — I might even say centuries – of neglect by foreigners, the history of the old Estado da India has lately come into its own in the wider world’. This was seconded by M.N. Pearson who noted that ‘Goan historiography seems to be on the verge of a renaissance’.

Our joint work, like so much else in life, had its origin in an accident of fate. It would never have seen the light of day, at least in its published forms, had it not been for the chance that the authors both came to the University of Birmingham in the mid-1960s, from different backgrounds and with different interests, and then found that, by the mid-1970s, their research interests had converged to the point where co-operative work began to appear both logical and feasible. At that moment, like countless other scholars in all branches of research, we did not have a clear idea of what we were embarking on or, of course, how long it would take. But we made a conscious decision, at a time when we had built up a considerable amount of intellectual capital, to attack one of the big problems of modern history, namely the causes of imperial expansion, and to take a chance on the outcome.

Our picture of English expansion in the early modern period is being transformed. Earlier in this century the story of overseas enterprise was an imperial story; the historian stood in London, and institutional development dominated the story. Charles M. Andrews led this approach in America, and A.P. Newton was leader of the English school. These historians studied communication between the metropolis and the tiny developing centers in America. The hinterland was important as it contributed tonnage and value. As the colonies developed, the backcountry sometimes entered die story as its setders challenged the now-established governments in the east. Culture, especially religion, was studied as it influenced the peculiar colonial development of key institutions in government and society. And the history of the British colonies was the history of early America.

In their impressive new study on British imperialism, Cain and Hopkins mention ‘the desultory negotiations sharing out the Dutch and Portuguese empires should they collapse’ between Britain and Germany at the turn of the century. In the corresponding note, however, they substantiate only the well known negotiations on the Portuguese empire and not those mysterious talks on the Dutch empire. It is one of only a few instances where Cain's and Hopkins’ 2,500 well-documented footnotes do not fully explain their 850 pages of thick description and analysis. Their suggestion of an Anglo-German understanding to divide the Dutch East Indies if necessary, however, does strike some raw nerves among Dutch contemporaries. In the official and unofficial minds of Dutch imperialism, there was a strong fear that die Netherlands could lose their large colonial empire to the great powers. In that case the Netherlands would be reduced to the ‘rank of Denmark’, to a ‘farm at the North Sea’. But this imperial fear was connected with the high hopes that the Netherlands could indeed become the ‘first among the nations of the second rank’, a real middle power, because of its vast colonial empire.

If anything is clear to the student of the history of the early modern French colonial enterprise, it is the need for a general overview to equal Boxer's and Parry's fine volumes on the Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish seaborne empires, or George Winius' volume in the Minnesota series. Not that such volumes on the French colonies do not exist, in French. Indeed, there has not been a decade since the 1920s without some such publication. None of them, however, appears to me to be wholly satisfactory. The glorification of the French ‘mission’ characterizing the earlier works nowjars; the more recent works are more balanced, but still, on the whole, too descriptive. This is particularly the case for the Histoire de la France coloniale, des origines à 1914. While the authors responsible for the period which interests us, Jean Meyer and Jean Tarrade, have produced distinguished works on the French overseas empire, their survey remains somewhat uncritical and, at least for the seventeenth century, very thin. As to the treatment of New France, it draws on a rather unreliable series of monographies.