Book Review: Fatland, E., (2024), Sjøfareren, Kagge Forlag (English translation, The Navigators: forthcoming)

This long book details the former Portuguese colonial imperium, from Cape Verde to East Timor, from Macao to Brazil. The author takes us through desserts, rain forests and remote villages as well as large, pulsating cities, across four continents and over three world oceans. Through over 600 pages, it follows three interchanging trades, mind-boggling details regarding various courageous Portuguese explorers with brief historical details about the colonies they discovered, and interviews with present day citizens from these various colonies. It detects different traces from earlier Portuguese influences, and, finally, includes a description of the long sea routes that the author travelled, this time with modern ships, in contrast to the caravels of the 14^th century explorers, from Spain via the Cape of Good Hope, the Strait of Malacca and all the way to Japan. What is the link to business you may wonder? Curiosity, dare and goal-setting!

Motivation

What drove the Portuguese? In part, it must have been the exceptional adventurousness of Portugal’s then senior royals, starting with the legendary Prince Henry the Seafarer, followed by several Portuguese kings who sponsored the various discovery expeditions. A great deal of the credit for these amazing voyages must also go to the various expedition leaders and their crews. At that time, the odds of returning after two years or even longer, was quite low. Often, less than half of the expedition members returned to Lisbon.

The small Portuguese nation, with no more than one million inhabitants then, was also driven by economic greed. The riches that the various expeditions brought with them (precious metals, spices, clothes, etc.), were formidable. The trade routes that subsequently were established, particularly those from India and Southeast Asia, dealing with exotic goods, gave Portugal lucrative monopolies for more than a century. The Portuguese were dominant militarily, with guns and rifles, but lacked raw materials and manpower.

Entrepreneurialism: the expansion of the Portuguese empire

The author starts by taking us to the enclave of Ceuta in Morocco, now Spanish but Portuguese until 1668. The next location is the Cape Verde islands, on the western side of Africa, which became independent in 1975, the year when the dictatorship period of Salazar collapsed in Portugal, and many of Portugal’s countries became independent. (Salazar died in 1973). From the barren islands of Cape Verde there is only a short trip across the Atlantic Ocean to Guinea on the west coast of the African mainland, another small and poor former dependency. This is in contrast to the two lush islands São Tomé and Príncipe. These islands, by some compared to the rain forest of the Amazons when it comes to their dramatic vegetation, feature exclusive coffee and cacao farming, although at a much smaller scale now compared to 1975 when the Portuguese left.

Angola is the first “big” Portuguese colony, located in the southwest part of Africa, and Portuguese from around 1500 to 1975, The major value of Angola for the Portuguese was access to slaves, initially deported from São Tomé and Príncipe, and later to Brazil. More than 1.5 million people were deported from Africa, by far the most by the Portuguese, with Brazil’s sugar farms, then Portuguese, being a major receiver. (Only around 400,000 slaves ended up in the US, by the way).

Angola’s present day wealth stems largely from the huge oil field discoveries, mostly offshore, giving Angola the status of becooming Africa’s second-largest producer of oil and gas, after Nigeria. But the Portuguese did not receive any of the economic fallouts from oil and gas.

Another large former colony is Mozambique, located on the southeastern side of southern Africa. Slightly smaller in population than Angola (33 million inhabitants versus 37 million) Mozambique was primarily an agricultural asset. It is also interesting to note that the Portuguese military seemed to be quite successful in maintaining a degree of control here. However, the order to withdraw in 1975 brought an end to Portuguese dominance.

In general, Portugal was despotic when it came to their rule in the colonies, with many executions, large prisons (with predominantly political inmates) and often effective secret police forces. Portugal exercised repressive control rather than “investing” significantly in education and infrastructure.

The tour now goes across the Indian Ocean, to the enclave of Goa and the smaller Daman and Diu, all three located on the western coast of India. These were Portuguese until 1961 when India invaded. These enclaves were initially significant producers of exotic spices. Over time, tourism has become prominent, which is still the case today. The hot, but stable, climate is a major plus.

Perhaps less known, the Portuguese were also in Sri Lanka, although only relatively briefly, from around 1500 to around 1660, when they were driven out by the Dutch and the British. Again, exotic spices and tea were the main drivers.

It is interesting to note that not only the Portuguese and British were active in India, but also the French (who gave up its colony Pondicherry, located in southeast India, as late as 1947), and the Dutch, who gave up the colony of Tranquebahr in 1845, also located in southeast India.

The Portuguese were also in Malacca at the shores of the Strait of Malacca, the world’s busiest seaway today, and next to Singapore. But their story there was relatively short-lived from around 1500 until around 1640. The main purpose here was to “control” the seafronts with valuable exotic spices from southeast Asia to Europe, by the Dutch and others.

The Portuguese were of course very interested in establishing their own sources for exotic spices. They came to the small Banda Islands, in the Malaccas as well as to East Timor, part of the Indonesian Archipelago. They left the Banda Islands as late as 1860, and East Timor in 1975. This country was then occupied by Indonesia until 1999, when it became an independent republic.

Amazingly the Portuguese were also in parts of Japan, although briefly only, from around 1540 until around 1640. The city of Nagasaki was the main focal point. Trading was the central focus.

A much more prominent role was achieved in Macau, located in southern China, next to Hong Kong, and handed over to China by Portugal as late as 1999, but with a “special” legislative status within China until 2049. Initially a trading hub, other activities, primarily gambling, soon took over. Today, Macau’s gambling is almost four times larger than that of Las Vegas!

The book’s “chronological” journey – Portugal – Africa – India – Southeast Asia/South Asia now ends. After a short “visit” to Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, discovered by the Portuguese around year 1500, famous as the location that Napoleon was deported to after the French loss at Waterloo in 1815, and where he died a few years later.

The major area now to be visited was, however, Brazil, where the Portuguese stayed in various capacities from around 1500 until around 1860. The country was a Portuguese colony until 1822 and independent, with its own emperor until 1860. For several years around 1800, Portugal’s capital was moved to Rio de Janeiro. The Portuguese king also moved, but, in 1822 the first independent emperor of Brazil was crowned.

Why was Brazil so important for Portugal? Partly, Brazil offered larges resources of precious metals. Also, Brazil’s sugar and coffee plantations became important. Rubber, today synthetic, but formerly a natural product, was also critical in the 19^th century, but did, however, not play a major role in the Portuguese economic equation.

Turning finally back to Portugal, the author spends time discussing the islands of the Azores and Madeira as well as briefly revisiting Portugal mainland, today a rather overcrowded and relatively poor country. The entrepreneurial spirit that the great Portuguese explorers had some 500 years earlier, now seems to be largely gone. Instead there seems to be a lot of complaining, now almost a key element of this country's present-day culture.

Portuguese heritage

This brings this reviewer to discussing the many interviews that the author has recorded from the various colonies and territories discussed in the previous section.

The Portuguese influence seems to remain amazingly strong, despite the fact that the Portuguese did not seem to provide all that much in return in the form of critical investments in infrastructure and education, for instance, but that they generally seemed to be quite “control-oriented”, even brutal at times, limiting participation by locals. The Portuguese were generally quite racist, even though marriages between white “dominators” and locals often took place.

It is particularly interesting to read about how the various resistance movements grew. Almost endless efforts were made, including on the battlefield, before independence was attained. Nasty local civil wars often erupted in several of the nearly “free” countries, however, most notably in Angola and in Mozambique. These wars were generally even more violent than the struggles to gain independence.

The remnant of the Portuguese language also seems to be quite strong, certainly in recently independent countries such as Angola, Mozambique or East Timor, but also in countries that gained independence long ago, such as Brazil and Malacca. Perhaps there is a sense of “pride” when it comes to old links with Portugal? Or could it be that with all the local dialects in most of these countries, there may be a good reason for allowing Portuguese to remain the main language? What may be the alternative?

Much of the dialogues with present day inhabitants seem to be too long, and often too detailed when it comes to exploring issues that might be less relevant, in this reviewer’s opinion. The book could have been more readable if some of this was cut out. The book’s length could have been shortened, say, to 500 pages, rather than maintaining the present page count.

Retracing history: the present-day ship journey

The author travelled with Höegh Autoliner’s Höegh Jeddah and Höegh Trooper. These voyages by sea, taking place in modern vessels, were in stark contrast to the risky sea ventures that the explorers undertook some 500 years earlier in their small ships.

Conclusions

This is a good book and does have some inspiration for business leaders. The author has clearly done a very impressive amount of research, which she has translated into detailed summaries on how the various early discovery expeditions took place.

The author clearly demonstrates the power of “civilized” Portugal to relatively easily “destroy” much of what was original, local culture. Guns and weapons were instrumental! This seems to be quite analogous to what we found in the earlier reviewed book,  “Is a River Alive?”, where modern mining, forest harvesting, and regulations to achieve more electricity generation. Even careless disposal of rubbish seems to be analogous to what we read about here. Both books discuss how western capitalist efforts can disrupt original cultural efforts. Both of these two books may be seen together (see my book review of “Is a River Alive?”).

An interesting to read, where can we draw business lessons? With anthropological lenses, sociology, behavioral science, history and even colonialism can show how goal-setting, curiosity and dare can bring clear short-, mid- and long-term “success”. What may appear random in colonialism, may have been a strategic plan, or what we in business may call a “road map”— in this case, literally.

This book brings to light many aspects of early history and discoveries that truly changed the world. And it is equally important when seen from an ecological point of view, namely how the “modern” technologies (guns, weapons) overpowered local cultural values.

Stretching further, we could see that colonialism, while often rooted in exploitation and injustice, offers several hard lessons that the modern business world can learn from—especially regarding power dynamics, ethics, globalization, and long-term sustainability. Here are some of the biggest takeaways:

•     Power without accountability breeds exploitation

•     Extractive models are unsustainable

•     Cultural misunderstandings leads to conflict

•     Short-term gain can lead to long-term reputational damage

•     Infrastructure can have dual outcomes

•     The narrative matters

•     Globalization is not neutral

•     Resistance is inevitable

While this book examines an extensive period of time, often with inconsistencies in ruling, discovery and expansion, the above takeaways it can trigger, are worth our consideration. Can colonialism therefore, and how it is described in this book, teach us what happens when profit, power, and ignorance override ethics, equity, and sustainability? For business, important is not to replicate extractive models, but to learn from their failures—building practices that are ethical, inclusive, and future-facing.