Portugal and the Western Mediterranean : a suggested survey

Abstract

The lines of late medieval and early modem trade that once linked Portugal with Barcelona and Spain ran overland from Atlantic Lisbon to Mediterranean Spain. They carried goods from Brazil as well as metals from Spanish America during the sixty years when Madrid dominated Lisbon. The section of Fernand Braudel's study of modern Mediterranean history which he calls 'L'Espagne quitte la Mediterranee', he might have also described as Spain pulls Portugal into the Mediterranean.