Buy new:
-29% $15.60
FREE delivery Monday, May 20 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Ships from: Amazon
Sold by: RoseBookz
$15.60 with 29 percent savings
List Price: $21.99

The List Price is the suggested retail price of a new product as provided by a manufacturer, supplier, or seller. Except for books, Amazon will display a List Price if the product was purchased by customers on Amazon or offered by other retailers at or above the List Price in at least the past 90 days. List prices may not necessarily reflect the product's prevailing market price.
Learn more
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
FREE delivery Monday, May 20 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
$$15.60 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$15.60
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Ships from
Amazon
Ships from
Amazon
Sold by
RoseBookz
Sold by
RoseBookz
Returns
30-day easy returns
30-day easy returns
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Read full return policy
Returns
30-day easy returns
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Read full return policy
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Payment
Secure transaction
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
$12.30
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
FREE delivery Friday, May 17 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
$$15.60 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$15.60
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Amazon book clubs early access
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Amazon book clubs early access

Join or create book clubs

Choose books together

Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Explore Amazon Book Clubs
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Nigel Cliff
+ Follow
More books from this author
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

The Last Crusade: The Epic Voyages of Vasco da Gama Paperback – Illustrated, August 28, 2012

by Nigel Cliff (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 586 ratings
See all formats and editions
{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$15.60","priceAmount":15.60,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"15","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"60","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"UOmgQsMJRRKtPnT7EUC9cuYCoXaBCvdYyzC7lGpIBmvbMRTFVlQ97mQdF8J384Ff79MGDikU8HirwdX%2Bxg4yS7bpnDBo0pFciyVnU2kivCZ4r%2FX16TZj92WF91MruMrLsxWdxIbgCZBlKN5pmJb6kgUu4XGj675FFgJ3gZwzYF7vdFdfQwcV%2BLgFGBmJipoo","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$12.30","priceAmount":12.30,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"12","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"30","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"UOmgQsMJRRKtPnT7EUC9cuYCoXaBCvdYVCFmbnmDtxNMRSqunasdxPKplUZYYc09YOR2dJpZBeNina4y9jOFMs8ZQqtck2pRjoLMIlktt5hpXWXl6cXcXMuLPQ6zw6zJqaiYXRJlhNekskLUngb0WyVdJ92451%2Fqt9BPHIHOkFV1NYHdp6rOr3VikejaduGw","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

HistorianNigel Cliff delivers a sweeping, radical reinterpretation of Vasco da Gama’spioneering voyages, revealing their significance as a decisive turning point inthe struggle between Christianity and Islam—a series of events which foreveraltered the relationship between East and West. Perfect for readers of Endurance:Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage, Galileo’sDaughter,and Atlantic,this first-ever completeaccount of da Gama’s voyages includes new information from the recentlydiscovered diaries of his sailors and an extraordinary series of lettersbetween da Gama and the Zamorin, a king of modern-dayKerala, India. Cliff, the author of The Shakespeare Riots, draws uponhis own travels in da Gama’s footsteps to add detail, authenticity, and acontemporary perspective to this riveting, one-of-a-kind historical epic.
Read more Read less
Previous page
  1. Print length
    560 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Harper Perennial
  4. Publication date
    August 28, 2012
  5. Dimensions
    5.31 x 0.89 x 8 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0061735132
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0061735134
  8. See all details
Next page
The Amazon Book Review
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.

Frequently bought together

The Last Crusade: The Epic Voyages of Vasco da Gama
$15.60
Get it as soon as Monday, May 20
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
Sold by RoseBookz and ships from Amazon Fulfillment.
+
Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire
$22.27
Get it as soon as Thursday, May 16
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Total price:
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Details
Added to Cart
One of these items ships sooner than the other.
Show details Hide details
Choose items to buy together.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Lively and ambitious . . . Cliff has a novelist’s gift for depicting character . . . he brings 16th century Portugal in all its splendor and squalor pungently to life.” — Eric Ormsby, New York Times Book Review

“Epic . . . a compelling adventure tale, told by Cliff with the right mix of sweep and detail.” — BookPage

“Readers who enjoy a yeasty narrative by a skilled storyteller will mark this book as one of their favorites of the year.” — Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Nigel Cliff’s Holy War is one of the most readable, engaging, and provoking books of the season, hands down . . . Cliff . . . writes with considerable energy, humor and narrative skill.” — Kansas City Star

“A fresh take on the history of the age of discovery . . . Cliff opens new vistas on much-explored territory.” — Publishers Weekly

“A useful addition to a continuing lively discussion of Christianity and Islam, situated both in respect of religions and culture, as well as empires and trade.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Cliff tells an often thrilling tale of adventure . . . He effectively restores the luster of da Gama’s achievement and provocatively reassesses the goals and significance of his expedition.” — Booklist

“A story told with great flair and serious scholarship.” — James Eckardt, The Nation

“A stirringly epic book…a thrilling narrative…This is broad-brush history, but it is accurate, and enlivened by splendid spots of color.” — Sunday Times (London)

From the Back Cover

In 1498 a young captain named Vasco da Gama sailed from Portugal, circumnavigated Africa, crossed the Indian Ocean, and discovered the sea route to the Indies and, with it, access to the fabled wealth of the East. It was the longest voyage ever undertaken at that time. With blood-red Crusader crosses emblazoned on their sails, the explorers arrived in the heart of the Muslim East in an era when the old hostilities between Christianity and Islam had risen to a new level of intensity. In two voyages that spanned six years, da Gama would fight a running sea battle that would ultimately change the fate of three continents.

The Last Crusade is an epic tale of spies, intrigue, and treachery—of bravado, brinkmanship, and confused, often comical collisions between cultures—offering a surprising new interpretation of the broad sweep of history.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (August 28, 2012)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 560 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0061735132
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0061735134
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.03 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.31 x 0.89 x 8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 586 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Nigel Cliff

Nigel Cliff

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
586 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Burns
5.0 out of 5 stars Great storytelling
Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2023
Verified Purchase
The Last Crusade: The Epic Voyages of Vasco Da Gama. Nigel Cliff. Harper Perennial, 2012. 560 pages.

If you ever need feel the need to pick up a readable historical text that covers the Age of Exploration, specifically Portugal's rise and fall as a world power, then Nigel Cliff's The Last Crusade is the book for you. It reads like a novel, but it is a thorough history European exploration and imperialism in the 15th and 16th centuries. The main focus is Vasco da Gama and his voyages to establish a Portuguese trade route to and relationship with India, voyages that led him to be the first European to successfully reach the subcontinent by sailing around Africa, but da Gama is not even mentioned until about page 150. First, Cliff relates the history of the rise of Islam, Islam's movement into Europe, the European resistance, and the series of Holy Wars launched by Popes and Kings to destroy Islamic control over the Holy Land. Eventually, Portugal and Spain emerged as the self-appointed chief defenders and promoters of the "True Faith." Cliff argues that Vasco da Gama's voyage to India wasn't just driven by the desire for spices and other riches for the Portugese Crown. In fact, da Gama was tapped to lead a new Crusade against Islam, with orders to destroy Muslim military and commercial influence in East Africa and Asia.

What transpired was one misadventure and misunderstanding after another. Da Gama mistakenly believed that India was full of Christians. OK, they were strange Christians that treated cows with reverence and decorated their temples with strange "saints" and "angels" with multiple faces, heads, limbs, but they had to be Christians, right? I mean, there were only Christians and Muslims in the world, right? The luxury goods the Portuguese brought to trade for spices, gold, and precious jewels, were sneered at viewed as garbage by the Indians.

The Last Crusade is an epic history of the "Age of Discovery" and a new interpretation. It is as history should be, great storytelling.
Helpful
 Report
Carol Miller
4.0 out of 5 stars A Ponderous Premise, Invaluable Scholarship
Reviewed in the United States on December 24, 2014
Verified Purchase
Book REview

A PONDEROUS PREMISE, INVALUABLE SCHOLARSHIP
Author Nigil Cliff, in his background to the Crusades, refers to a "rock" from which Mohammed departed by horseback for heaven, without naming the steed ("Barak"), generally considered a detail of interest, or in fact the rock, itself the “Rock of Abraham”, not in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, as the author states, but rather the very holy "Dome of The Rock" facing it across the esplanade. His summary of the origins of Islam is in fact sketchy and slipshod. He then mentions the cult of "the assassins" but not their earliest formation, actually in the heart of Persia and not, as he claims, along the coast of Syria to which they later shifted operations. He describes incidents common to certain often-cited chronicles of the Crusades while he glosses over others. He makes no mention of the decisive Battle of Acre in 1291. But once he gets into sub-Saharan Africa the book is livelier. He dwells at length, for example, on the development of the slave trade. His treatment of Vasco da Gama, presumably the core of the text, is more elaborate, therefore richer, despite the reference to the Portuguese sea captain's "setting out from the western fringe of the known world" when in truth the world was well known long before, and thoroughly charted by Chinese and Arab commerce and exploration.
Then there is the matter of the coral beads. He cites them among the tribute offered the East African sultans, disdained by them as prosaic. Why would someone surrounded by coral reefs be enticed by coral beads? He fails to clarify; he gets all the way to Chapter 12 before again citing coral beads, this time as articles of worth, desirable for the merchants of India’s Malabar Coast. Coral of jewelry quality, in reality, originates in the stems of coral trees and not in reef coral at all. Corals first appeared in the Cambrian period, about 570 million years ago. Naturally smooth, glossy beads of various shades and tones of coral—cream, pink, red, blue—were prevalent in Europe long before the Portuguese voyages. Fine coral can even be found in Ireland and the reds of Venice were priceless; and the most celebrated workshops are to this day located in southern Italy. Coral implies health, wealth and well-being, to such an extent that bits and beads of coral, like chunks of jet or quartz, were shared as amulets and presented to the new-born to ward off “the evil eye”. (For the Tibetans their red “mountain coral” signified avatars or incarnations of Buddha.)
And yes, about the name, that inventor and painter, what was he called? Vinci? No, it was Da Vinci, or da Vinci, and so it was da Gama, not, as this author annoyingly refers to him, "Gama", or resolves the Italian artist as simply “Leonardo”. Conversely, he refers to “Francisco Xavier”, co-founder of the Society of Jesus, with actually two first names, but he reduces them to “Xavier”, not a surname at all, to a man born Francisco de Jasso y Azpilicuenta as a Basque Roman Catholic missionary, originally from Xavier, Kingdom of Navarre, now a part of Spain.
Vasco da Gama’s adventuresome but somehow orderly life ends in Cochin, in Southwestern India, the continent he “discovered”, during his third voyage. His death has never been explained. It might have been poison, perhaps a strange tropical disease. Cliff’s description suggests possibly a rampant form of herpes, but doubt, like a cloud, is furthered in Da Gama’s scant popularity. The Portuguese, like all the European colonists, were sadistic, cruel and merciless in their dealings with the locals.
The saddest commentary, of course is the notion, both literary and historical, of a never-ending brawl between Christian and Muslim, patent in fact to the present day. So sad that love of God has persistently fostered greed, rivalry, downright hatred, not at all attuned to the love of God but the loathing of one's fellow man. A different creed, like a different color, breeds distrust, fear, repugnance and dismay. Why? God by any name is still God.
The book is no marvel of prose—it is peppered with clumsy, sophomoric phrasing—but nonetheless describes battles, mishaps and encounters and is lively enough to read with great interest, carefully enough documented from historical sources and certainly fills a singular gap, despite the confusion between Nestorian and Manichean Christians. Vasco da Gama, little Portugal’s Admiral, later Viceroy, of India, was often overlooked as a significant milestone in nautical exploration and the expansion of Christianity in the East. He and his captains braved the cruel Cape of Good Hope, delved into the East African coast and opened the route, especially for costly spices, rare perfumes and drugs, rich textiles and glamorous jewels, through the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea, to a land already grandly developed, far from the scanty tribes of the Americas encountered by Christopher Columbus, a Genoan sailing on behalf of Spain and failed, blatantly, in his attempts to reach the very India that made Portugal, for such a long time, master of the seas.
3 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Retired Prof
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent service and condition!
Reviewed in the United States on October 20, 2023
Verified Purchase
Excellent service and condition
Helpful
 Report
Vascodagama
5.0 out of 5 stars Great!
Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2023
Verified Purchase
A great story and Cliff does a great job telling it!
Helpful
 Report
James Michaels
5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding effort
Reviewed in the United States on June 30, 2021
Verified Purchase
This guy can write! I am only half way thru but I like Mr. Cliff style of writing. I see some of the critics are calling this a cut down on the West, but sometimes the truth hurts. I have read a dozen books on the Crusades, and they were brutal and acts of extreme violence and hatred were common and accepted. Cliff’s book does not shy away from what happened to many people of different faiths during this period of history. I am giving this book high marks.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
William J. Higgins,III
3.0 out of 5 stars Not What I Expected
Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2016
Verified Purchase
If the reader is anticipating high adventure in the world of early exploration, I would suggest foregoing the first section of nearly 150 pages. All you need to know is that Christians and Muslims had been clashing and waging war against each other for centuries. Although this part of history is insightful and well researched, it can be tedious and exhausting.

Vasco da Gama finally comes on the scene in Part II. Portugal was in need of opening a sea route to India for the spice trade and to Christianize everyone in its path. What occurs are blood baths everywhere da Gama made a presence. More battles, more encounters and more crusades eventually place Portugal at the top of world wealth. Over time, efforts to maintain its world supremacy succumb to every imaginable downfall.

On the back cover it is mentioned, “...often comical collisions between cultures” and “written with considerable energy, humor and narrative skill”. There is nothing comical or humorous in the discourse of this read, or for that matter in the subjugation of societies.
2 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

Piotr Opacian
5.0 out of 5 stars Great read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 22, 2024
Verified Purchase
Very fine read unravelling all the details of the story - very precise but still reads like a good novel.
Report
Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Great narrative history
Reviewed in Germany on December 4, 2023
Verified Purchase
This is a splendid read. You get a terrific sense of what it was like on Gama's voyage. The opening chapters that set up the context are superbly well done.
Report
Paula Roldão
5.0 out of 5 stars Love
Reviewed in Spain on October 22, 2020
Verified Purchase
Love
Report
Robert
5.0 out of 5 stars A great read
Reviewed in Australia on January 3, 2023
Verified Purchase
An enjoyable story
Report
Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent.. researched brilliantly
Reviewed in India on August 3, 2017
Verified Purchase
Excellent. .researched brilliantly. .well written for not only the lay reader but for the student of history also..
Report