Empire of Contingency explores the information and communication practices of the Portuguese empire in late-sixteenth- and seventeenth-century India – during which period Portuguese imperial ambitions were struggling for survival, while the Mughal empire was at the height of its power.

Jorge Flores uncovers the apparatuses of intelligence through which the Estado da Índia endeavoured to survive in a vast Indo-Persian world. Detailing the complex relations that officials of the Portuguese empire maintained with the Mughals as well as with the sultanates of Ahmadnagar and Bijapur – through information gathering, record-keeping, interpreting, and diplomatic correspondence – Flores demonstrates how the Portuguese territories along the western coast of India were substantially incorporated into the vast Persianate cultural sphere from Iran to South East Asia. Showing how a European empire was drawn into the political practices and rituals of the Indo-Persian world, this book compels us to look afresh at the Portuguese empire in Asia.

JORGE FLORES is Senior Researcher at the Interuniversity Centre for the History of Science and Technology and the Department of History and Philosophy of Science of the University of Lisbon.

“Persuasively argued, absorbing, and well-researched” – Sanjay Subrahmanyam

“A much-needed, major study of information gathering, record-keeping, and communication across cultures in the context of the European presence in Asia” – Giuseppe Marcocci