The Establishment Of The European Hegemony, 1415-1715: Trade And Exploration In The Age Of The Renaissance

by John H. Parry

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204 pages, Paperback

First published September 28, 2007

About the author

John Horace Parry (J. H. Parry), a historian of the seas and the men who sailed them for trade and conquest, died Wednesday of a heart attack at his home in Cambridge, Mass. He was 68 years old.

Professor Parry came to this country from his native Britain in 1965 to join the history department of Harvard University as Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs.

He was the author of 10 books chronicling the era of seaborne discoverers and traders from the 15th through 18th centuries. At the time of his death, he was preparing a book on the times of Captain Cook.

He was born April 26, 1914. He spent some student years at Harvard before earning his doctorate at Cambridge University in 1938. His academic career was interrupted by five years of service in the Royal Navy in World War II, and he was awarded the Order of the British Empire. Wrote on Spanish Empire

His first book, ''The Spanish Theory of Empire,'' was published while he was on naval duty in 1940. Among his more recent volumes published in this country was ''The Spanish Seaborne Empire'' in 1966, relating the exploits of Cortes, Pizarro and other conquistadors.

''The barbarous courage and the brutal splendor of the conquest are not scanted by Mr. Parry,'' Charles Poore wrote, reviewing the book in The New York Times. ''But he also gives us much more precise knowledge about what went on from day to day, what people ate, how they established wages for slavery and or peonage, and so on, than we get from the pageantry school of historians.''

Professor Parry's later books included ''The Discovery of the Sea'' (1974) and ''The Discovery of South America'' (1979). After his naval service, he became a tutor and lecturer at Cambridge and then taught at University College of the West Indies. He was a visiting professor of history at Harvard in the mid-1950's before serving for four years as principal of University College in Ibadan, Nigeria.

Before his 1965 return to Harvard, Professor Parry served at University College of Swansea, Wales, and as vice chancellor of the University of Wales.

He is survived by his wife, the former Joyce Carter; a son, Michael, and three daughters, Joanna, Katherine and Elizabeth.

Reviews

[DoctorM · Rating 4 out of 5]

For whatever it's worth, Parry's "The Establishment of the European Hegemony 1415-1715" was the first book assigned to me in my first History class at university. At seventeen, I knew nothing at all about the Portuguese maritime empire in the Indian Ocean or about the Portuguese-Ottoman-Dutch-English-Indian struggles for control of trade and trade routes. I was...captured straightaway my the book. Fine writing, a good eye for the technical details of ships and cannon as well as politics and trade. Years later, when I was reaching Western Civ. and Intro to World History classes of my own, I made a point of assigning Parry's book. All these years later, it's still an excellent introduction to the opening years of Western expansion into Asia. Recommended.

[Anita · Rating 3 out of 5]

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