(dis)Connected Empires

<em>(Dis)connected Empires</em> takes the reader on a global journey to explore the triangle formed during the sixteenth century between the Portuguese empire the empire of Kotte in Sri Lanka and the Catholic Monarchy of the Spanish Habsburgs. It explores nine decades of connections cross-cultural diplomacy and dialogue to answer one troubling question: why in the end did one side decide to conquer the other? <p/>To find the answer Biedermann explores the imperial ideas that shaped the politics of Renaissance Iberia and sixteenth-century Sri Lanka. <em>(Dis)connected Empires</em> argues that whilst some of these ideas and the political idioms built around them were perceived as commensurate by the various parties involved differences also emerged early on. This prepared the ground for a new kind of conquest politics which changed the inter-imperial game at the end of the sixteenth century. The transition from suzerainty-driven to sovereignty-fixated empire-building changed the face of Lankan and Iberian politics forever and is of relevance to global historians at large. Through its scrutiny of diplomacy political letter-writing translation practices warfare and art <em>(Dis)connected Empires</em> paints a troubling panorama of connections breeding divergence and leading to communicational collapse. It examines a key chapter in the pre-history of British imperialism in Asia highlighting how diplomacy and mutual understandings can under certain conditions produce conquest.<br>