Asia and the West in the New World Economy—the Limited Thalassocracies: The Portuguese and the Dutch in Asia, 1498–1700

According to the distinguished Indian historian K.M. Panikkar, the arrived of Vasco da Gama at Calicut in 1498 inaugurated an era of Western dominance that would last until the end of the Second World War. ¹ Such a claim, characteristic of the historiographical school that detected “the seeds of empire” in all European contact, is overly teleological. ² Initially the Europeans lacked the means to create an Asian empire. The ability of the Portuguese and their successors, the Spanish, Dutch, and English, to establish direct trade relations with Asia and sustain a permanent foothold in India and the Far East depended upon the accelerating development of European shipbuilding, navigational techniques, and naval gunnery. ³