Hi all,
Don't know if any of you remember but i posted a bulltin a while back trying to discover the name of a book on Portugal/Portuguese and how it influenced the world. Couldn't get any results so forgot about it till just a few days ago.
Book is: First Global Village by Martin Page. Very interesting too. And explains why my google search re Portugal influence etc got me nowhere!!

Thanks for that guest2, will see if I can find that, sounds interesting. Is it the history of the Portuguese people and their country?

Guest, I had a phone call enquiring about that book (maybe it was you). I found short references to it here and there but then no matter where you look it is not listed on databases or any bookshop on line.

Couldn't trace it I'm sorry to say...maybe anyone here knows anything about it?

58. PAGE, Martin. The First Global Village: How Portugal Changed the World. 6th ed. Lisbon: Editorial Notícias, 2004. 8°, orig. illus. wrps. 277 pp. ISBN: 972-46-1313-5. $38.00

Popular, lively, easy reading account, at times somewhat simplistic in its approach. The author was, at the time this volume appeared, senior writer for The Tablet, the international Catholic review. First published February 2002; a second edition appeared in May the same year; the fourth edition was published in March 2003; the fifth edition appeared in January of 2004; this sixth edition appeared in October 2004.

Reference: http://www.livroraro.com/B44/B44pt9.htm

Hi,
Yup the book is an interesting read. Not a great book but with lotts of interesting little facts about Portugal and the dicoveries etc. IE: the Japanese for thank you comes from a bastardisation of the Portuguese Obrigado. Apparently they introduced curry to India! Catherine de Bragance intoduced afternoon tea and cake to the English. Portuguese gave England Bombay and thence England took Indian etc.
It worh a read.

Yes, I also read that Caterina de Bragança, who was married to an English prince (Henry, I think), introduced tea to the English court. The Portuguese had brought it from China. "Chi" is tea, I believe, in Chinese and not far away from the Portuguese for tea: "Chá". Those of you from London, like me, might also remember some of your more elderly relatives referring to tea by saying "do you want a nice cup of cha?" Tea would have come into the docklands, I suppose. Interesting stuff.

Catarina de Bragança introduced tea. She also introduced afternoon tea time as a way to keep a close look on her friends, since her husband was a bit of a womanizer.

"Thank You" in japonese is "arigato" a corruption of "obrigado".

The Portuguese also contributed to spreading use of spices in Europe.

Chi is Turkish for tea. Those Portuguese get everywhere!