Imperial frontiers and conquests

The author's description of the Portuguese challenge to Akbar, Jahangir and Shahjahan in Bengal is particularly informative

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,