Three Ways of Locating the Global

Reflections, echoes, connections: the sixteenth century abounds with transcontinental phenomena carrying the potential to challenge Eurocentric narratives in global history. Even as we look back on the now substantial historiography of early modern global flows and connections, new and surprising aspects catch our eye every time we delve into the sixteenth century. We may take almost any single year — for example, 1546, not a particularly remarkable one in the making of the new global order — and still be confronted with a series of events calling for novel enquiries into big, globally relevant processes. In Yucatán, 1546 brought a renewal of warfare following the conclusion of one of the most violent campaigns of Spanish territorial conquest at the end of the previous year.1 In Gujarat, an Ottoman-led coalition besieged the Portuguese fort of Diu, set up a decade earlier as a result of negotiations with violent turns that had led the sultan Bahadur Shah to concede this key Indian Ocean port. The siege — the second of its sort, preceded by a first one in 1538 — forced the Estado da Índia to muster all its military and diplomatic might to defend itself. This involved ships and troops brought in from outposts including the semi-official Portuguese trading community of Meliapor, which had prospered on the Coromandel Coast of south India by participating in trade with south-east Asian ports such as Patani and Melaka.2 The siege of Diu may also be read in connection with the dynamics of the Ottoman campaigns in Hungary at the time and the suspension of hostilities in Italy, linked to the Anglo-French truce agreed in the Treaty of Ardres. Further events might be added to the picture, but with every addition, the challenge increases to explain what such concurrences should mean to us as historians.

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · CONQUEST · Diplomacy · Economic history · Economy · Geography · Historiography · Narrative · Negotiation · Order (exchange) · Political science · Politics · Portuguese · Siege · Asian Studies and History · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Law · Philippine History and Culture

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