Their abode was the sea. Their raison d’être commerce, their nationality Portuguese, their consciousness transnational. Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert has written A Nation Upon the Ocean Sea: Portugal’s Atlantic Diaspora and the Crisis of the Spanish Empire, 1492–1640, a fascinating and page-turning account of the Portuguese trading community, which contained some Catholics but was largely composed of Jewish and New Christian…
From the archives
Between Words
Anne Carson’s new book-without-a-spine, and the spiritual experience of centrelessness
Boredom as a Political Weapon
Saul Bellow fought banality—and taught us to look hard at the world