alt.hn

2/18/2026 at 7:45:11 AM

Portugal: The First Global Empire (2015)

 https://www.historytoday.com/archive/first-global-empire

by Thevet

2/18/2026 at 1:09:06 PM

World powers change and shift with changes of technology, climate and needs for resources. Countries rise to power because they are in the right place at the right time, even if monarchs and nationalists will always attribute it to God preference or other self-serving reason.

> The first century of Portuguese discoveries saw a successive stripping away of layers of medieval mythology about the world and the received wisdom of ancient authority – the tales of dog-headed men and birds that could swallow elephants – by the empirical observation of geography, climate, natural history and cultures that ushered in the early modern age.

Technology brings societal change. The world has been becoming smaller with help of each new technological step. Societies can fight it, but it is unavoidable. So, I hope that we focus more on building a good world for us all using technology to improve all our lives.

by Frieren

2/19/2026 at 5:40:44 PM

>World powers change and shift with changes of technology, climate and needs for resources. Countries rise to power because they are in the right place at the right time,

I wonder when will China take the crown. Assuming US follows on their current trajectory.

by ksec

2/19/2026 at 10:52:58 AM

> Countries rise to power because they are in the right place at the right time, even if monarchs and nationalists will always attribute it to God preference

Isn’t it literally the God’s preference of a country for this place and time, from both secular and religious points of view?

by nlitened

2/19/2026 at 1:03:40 PM

The traditional way of looking to by "God will" means that something is right and moral.

I agree that nowadays it is also used as just a substitute to "luck" or "random event" without the moral connotations.

by Frieren

2/18/2026 at 9:54:01 PM

Spain was the first globalization, not Portugal. The article forgets to mention two key elements:

1) The Manila galeon[1], the first trading route connecting Europe, America and Asia. This was the first trully global trade route (Portugual never established a trans-Pacific route).

2) The Real de a Ocho[2], the first global currency, used virtually everywhere including the US until the modern dollar replaced it in 1857. It still lives through the $ symbol, representing the Pillars of Hercules and the "Plus Ultra" script [3].

It also downplays the role of Spain in the first circumnavigation. Sure, Magellan was born in Portugal, but he sailed for the Spanish Crown. The expedition was financed by Spain, sailed Spanish ships and finished its trip commanded by a Spanish sailor (Juan Sebastián Elcano).

Finally, it is worth mentioning that the Spanish was not an empire of mere territorial possession, it was a civilization. Spain has currently 50 sites inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage [4], and from the ~150 sites in the Americas, ~50 were built by Spain. These includes entire cities, universities, hospitals, infrastructure, defenses and more [5].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGRn5qCAXBI

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_dollar

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plus_ultra

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_Heritage_Sites_i...

[5] https://greatbritainandtheusatheirtruehistory.quora.com/33-c...

by fauria

2/19/2026 at 12:27:52 AM

As a history enjoyer I have actually heard of this:

> The Black Legend (Spanish: leyenda negra) or the Spanish Black Legend (Spanish: leyenda negra española) is a purported historiographical tendency which consists of anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic propaganda

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Legend

by someone7x

2/19/2026 at 7:47:36 AM

I'll be honest, that sounds like either propaganda itself or someone's victim complex.

by Pay08

2/18/2026 at 10:28:16 PM

>This was the first trully global trade route (Portugual never established a trans-Pacific route).

You're saying because Portugal traded with Asia through the wrong ocean, it wasn't global? Seems like an odd metric.

by sigmar

2/18/2026 at 10:53:04 PM

No, I'm sayng that Portugal never closed the circuit that led to a global trade route. They built a line between Europe and Asia, but Asia and America remained economically disconnected. It was that loop that Spain closed that enabled a global economy.

by fauria

2/19/2026 at 7:30:35 AM

There was nothing in the Americas as trade partners, in the meanwhile Portugal was trading with Africa, India and Asia (including Japan) in regular routes. Your point is moot.

by nunobrito

2/18/2026 at 11:23:58 PM

This is true. Tordesillas meant that trans-Pacific trade was not realistic for Portugal.

by leflambeur

2/19/2026 at 12:43:56 AM

Don’t forget the Dutch who were the first to have colonies in North and South America, Africa and Asia.

by JackFr

2/18/2026 at 10:39:17 PM

Spain didn't exist back then

by hugodan

2/18/2026 at 10:57:29 PM

Establishing when did Spain become Spain is complicated, but a commonly agreed date is 1480, following the Cortes of Toledo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Castile

by fauria

2/18/2026 at 11:15:30 PM

...more than 160 years after the portuguese navy was founded, and 20 years after Henry the Navigator was dead. Still not as big of a gap as those 19th century references that you linked to reply to a post about 15th century events

by hugodan

2/18/2026 at 11:44:56 PM

I'm not sure what the organizative reform of Spain has to do with the founding date of Spain and Portugal's navies. In any case, the Spanish Armada is the result of joining the Castilian and Aragonese navies, both dating from the early XIII century: https://armada.defensa.gob.es/ArmadaPortal/page/Portal/Armad...

by fauria

2/18/2026 at 11:39:58 PM

For anyone interested in this "They may have been the first to visit Australia.", the comment refers to a wreck supposedly found in 1836 by whalers near Warrnambool.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahogany_Ship

by dwd

2/18/2026 at 11:31:17 PM

Also unmentioned is the disastrous intervention in the Moroccan civil war of 1580, where the teen king and most of its nobles were killed, leading to 60 years of Spanish rule. This is not at the apex of the empire, but close.

Also, Henry the Navigator downright stole or cajoled most of the "inovations" from Italian city states. For example, the Madeira island was named so by Italians, settled by some of Henry's minions.

by JetSpiegel

2/19/2026 at 11:00:01 AM

Nah, he is still supposed to come back in a foggy morning according to the legend.

Fueled by the fact that his body was never found, so it might be that he survived and rather stay low than come back.

by pjmlp

2/19/2026 at 1:55:25 AM

Technically, also the last global empire. Macau wasn't returned to China until 1999. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handover_of_Macau

by Anon84

2/19/2026 at 2:17:59 AM

France and USA still have colonies around the world. So no, not the last.

by markdown

2/19/2026 at 11:03:41 AM

Also Netherlands, also France, also Denmark, also Spain (melila and ceuta)... actually Portugal kinda is still the first global empire that managed to shift away from it

by hugodan

2/19/2026 at 2:29:31 AM

Are those considered colonies or territories?

by Anon84

2/19/2026 at 7:48:00 AM

So does the UK.

by Pay08

2/19/2026 at 1:05:22 AM

Fun fact: Macau was the oldest and longest lived European colony in Asia, 1557-1999. It’s still a fun place to visit and mostly off the radar for Western tourists.

by United857

2/19/2026 at 2:24:45 AM

each empire of built on mastering an energy source

Portuguese - wind

british - coal

america - oil

now we're witnessing Chinese master renewables (solar & wind)

by dzonga

2/18/2026 at 12:42:10 PM

It would be interesting to imagine a uchronic world where Portuguese has become the lingua franca of the world.

by N19PEDL2

2/19/2026 at 7:35:25 AM

On the southern hemisphere of this planet it is the most spoken native language.

Interesting enough it has a wild variation of accents/slangs but the written form mostly stays the same regardless of the country.

by nunobrito

2/18/2026 at 5:32:08 PM

You would first have to imagine portuguese being the lingua franca of the iberian peninsula. Hard to imagine.

Passing that hurdle, then you'd have to imagine portuguese being the lingua franca of western europe. Hard to imagine that.

Then of europe as a whole and so on. Almost a joke now.

Portuguese was never the major power of it's immediate vicinity, let alone the world. Portugual, like the netherlands, was a glorified trading network rather than a legitimate empire. And portugual, like the netherlands, were minor powers within europe. Neither were major global powers as we understand the term and neither were powerful nor significant enough to produce a lingua franca of anything.

by hearsathought

2/18/2026 at 8:47:27 PM

I think the comparison with the Netherlands is generally appropriate, but we must recognize that what they did in Brazil was exceptional (meaning not comparable to their former possessions in Asia and Africa, a difference from the mere trading nodes) and the NL never did achieve anything like it.

The Portuguese managed to maintain territorial integrity and make their religion and language dominate it entirely, in what's today the 5th largest nation state by area. They also had to defend the longest coastline.

The Portuguese Empire did exist but AFAIK never did aspire to world hegemony like the U.K. Their idea of empire was best represented by something they briefly had which was the combined union with Brazil after its promotion from colony in 1815.

So, not an empire like the U.K. and never wanting to be an empire like the U.K. but also not a total failure to achieve some version of it, however short lived that was.

by leflambeur

2/19/2026 at 1:49:13 AM

Didn’t the Dutch basically take over the Portuguese trading empire from them?

by vondur

2/19/2026 at 9:08:02 AM

Yes! The losses were due to independence loss to Spain. In a sense the loss of sovereignty to Spain destroyed the Portuguese empire.

Spain joined the Portuguese and Spanish armada and went on to fight the English (and Dutch to some extent), with catastrophic results for both Spain and Portugal fleets. When Portugal regained independence 1640 it needed to get back sovereignty of overseas territories, including from the Dutch.

The Dutch controlled a big part of north Brazil when Portugal and Spain were the Iberian Union, but the Dutch and were driven back afterwards at great cost. The damage was done, and 1755 earthquake was the final nail.

There were also terrible mistake in terms of state management up to the XX century where the natives, were not seen as full citizens, and naturally rebelled.

As a post colonial portuguese citizen, it seems like an incredible fantasy that our society descends from such a grandiose history. Even in this thread i see the name Henry the Navigator and am incredulous people know who he was.

A less known both inside and outside Portugal bad ass dude was Afonso de Albuquerque. This is from his English wikipedia page about Hormuz in the middle east:

> At the same time, Albuquerque decided to conclude the effective conquest of Hormuz. He had learned that after the Portuguese retreat in 1507, a young king was reigning under the influence of a powerful Persian vizier, Reis Hamed, whom the king greatly feared. At Ormuz in March 1515, Afonso met the king and asked the vizier to be present. He then had him immediately stabbed and killed by his entourage, thus "freeing" the terrified king, so the island in the Persian Gulf yielded to him without resistance and remained a vassal state of the Portuguese Empire.

Here came a dude that does both diplomacy and war in person, and moved on. Vasco da Gama was a bit similar. Portuguese were quite out of their minds and for me shows shows the pedigree of bloodlust[1] that Europeans must have gained after endless continental strife. That is why I am really afraid of the rearming of Europe, I believe Europeans have a genetic disposition for destruction, and history shows that.

[1] https://www.thepsmiths.com/p/review-storia-do-mogor-by-nicco...

by ptsneves

2/19/2026 at 2:26:26 AM

Yes, to a significant but not total degree. Some of those losses were later recouped by Portugal (current Northeastern Brazil and Angola).

I think that the losses in Asia were more lasting, or permanent.

by leflambeur

2/18/2026 at 9:31:18 PM

Yes and no. it's not like they ever extracted taxes from most of the natives living in the amazon jungle. Saying that you rule over people that have literally never heard of you is, IMO, stretching the definition of "rule" quite a bit :-)

by rmah

2/18/2026 at 9:38:44 PM

Since when is taxing all subjects a necessity? Britain didn't tax people in the 13 colonies so could we conclude that before the American Revolution they were not part of the British Empire?

by leflambeur

2/18/2026 at 9:43:47 PM

> the NL never did achieve anything like it.

> The Portuguese managed to maintain territorial integrity and make their religion and language dominate it entirely, in what's today the 5th largest nation state by area. They also had to defend the longest coastline.

Conquering multiple ethnic Malay kingdoms - a number of whom were armed and backed by the Ottomans, Mughals, and Americans and had access to gunpowders, naval yards, literacy, and proto-industrialization - and unifying them into Indonesia is a Herculean task that I'd argue is much more complex than the Portuguese project in Brazil.

by alephnerd

2/18/2026 at 9:46:53 PM

do 99.9% of the people born there speak Dutch? When they became independent, were they 80%+ Reformed Dutch protestants?

I don't reject the notion that NL vastly influenced Indonesia but the impact is not even remotely similar to PT and Brazil.

by leflambeur

2/18/2026 at 9:49:46 PM

Was Brazil inhabited by countries with access to gunpowder, naval yards, proto-industrialization, and allies with transcontinental empires? No.

It was largely Amerindians who were exterminated and genocided with ease.

Conquering empires that were near-peers technologically is different from settling a continent which was at the losing end of the Colombian exchange.

by alephnerd

2/18/2026 at 9:53:09 PM

You may want to look into the genetic composition of modern-day Brazilians to consider whether "Amerindians were exterminated" is a coherent way to represent it.

edit: we are just comparing 2 completely different models here. You're not wrong about some things, you are just talking about a different thing than I :)

edit 2: you are lacking information if you think that Brazilian Amerindians did not also partner with European powers (France and the NL itself comes to mind) against the Portuguese and it's somewhat amusing that you think that Portugal was never challenged on that vast territory by other powers.

by leflambeur

2/18/2026 at 9:54:56 PM

My point still stands. Their culture was completely decimated and they were largely replaced by European and African migrants, indentured servants, and slaves.

Subjugating a native people that lacked metalworking, gunpowder, and literacy is different from conquering multiple nations that had all of those and was backed by the Ottomans, Mughals, and Americans.

by alephnerd

2/19/2026 at 7:57:01 AM

You are imprinting your worldview on someting that differs from historical facts, maybe influenced by anglophone chronicles of what the spanish did in the americas. Spanish were no angels, however, much of what is published tends to be biased and differ quite a bit from what happened on the ground.

Despite neighbour to Spain: Portugal built a different culture altogether since its inception as an iberian kingdom. For example, instead of wiping out the muslim populations, the first king established a policy nowadays known as "don't ask, don't tell" in regards to religion. Which clashed with the Spanish/Italian approaches but at the same time permitted rapid expansion of territory since the population was absorved rather than decimated.

The Brazilian land has dense vegetation and native populations that never generated large settlements nor advanced cultures as you'd see in other parts of America, existing in a continuous state of tribal warring against each other.

The crown/church forbid portuguese women from travelling overseas and the number of sailors travelling was low (the kingdom was small population-wise). Portuguese technology and culture were very, very, very attractive to the native populations who came in contact with these sailor crews. They quickly mixed with the locals to create blood-related families on those locations with local leaders (same as done in India). The portuguese doctrine remained the same as during foundation times of the kingdom, aimed to mix as much as possible with local populations to thrive. This resulted in centuries of family ties across the atlantic that still last until today. Looking on my own example, I keep family ties on three different continents that all speak the same language.

All of this to say that integration was very fast from the native population point of view to join the empire because of mutual benefits for either parties, to the point that the portuguese army in the Americas was composed and lead in majority by natives themselves which went to subjugate rival tribes with better equipment than the counterparts.

by nunobrito

2/18/2026 at 10:20:10 PM

No, lol, that is not how that works. Your point is factually wrong, your point doesn't "stand".

by leflambeur

2/18/2026 at 11:43:41 PM

and just how did they got the gunpowder? ;)

by hugodan

2/19/2026 at 12:07:08 AM

The Rajahdoms and Sultanates that became Indonesia and Malaysia did so via existing domestic capacity and intercultural exchange with the Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals, and other "Gunpowder" empires [0][1].

Heck, the only reason the Dutch couldn't completely invade Aceh was because the Ottomans and Mughals threatened to sanction the Dutch [2] in the 17th century for threatening a fellow Sunni state.

We are reverting to the historical norm where we don't need you Farangis anymore. O facto de o IDH da Malásia ter atingido o IDH de Portugal de há 7 anos mostra que vocês, portugueses, precisam de rever os vossos egos. Tendo passado anos em Boston, conheci muitas pessoas do seu tipo - Brasileiro e português.

[0] - https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/V/bo595652...

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_expeditions_to_Aceh

[2] - https://brill.com/display/book/9789004454460/B9789004454460_...

by alephnerd

2/19/2026 at 1:42:38 AM

This is one resentful individual. Likes to imply how this or that people is inferior to the other (I thought we were discussing differences in forms of settlement, colonization and maritime expansion) then pivots to modern day economic statistics to again imply that some people are superior to others then finally succumbs to racism but is careful enough to change the language!!

by leflambeur

2/19/2026 at 8:44:12 AM

...and yet you speak portuguese while trying to dismiss (and rewrite) a post about 15th century events with data from the 17th century

by hugodan

2/18/2026 at 10:49:51 PM

The Dutch had more in common with British East India company phase of the British expansion.

by christkv

2/18/2026 at 9:41:43 PM

> The Portuguese Empire did exist but AFAIK never did aspire to world hegemony like the U.K

Every time I meet a laid back, easy going and kind Portuguese person — which is most of them — I always think that explains their relatively unambitious world domination plans.

by gib444

2/19/2026 at 6:16:20 AM

The Portuguese sometimes describe themselves as the "povo de brandos costumes" (people of mild customs).

by MITSardine

2/19/2026 at 8:01:43 AM

True. Most of them were just trying to live better and enjoy life outside.

by nunobrito

2/18/2026 at 9:38:07 PM

The 1755 earthquake effectively nuked the capital and killed maybe a third of GDP.

Portugal was never interested in dominance of Europe - hard to project power to the centre when you're out on the far edge and have more of a navy than an army.

But the trade network was the first truly global network, and very much non-trivial.

by TheOtherHobbes

2/18/2026 at 7:31:15 PM

> Portugual, like the netherlands, was a glorified trading network rather than a legitimate empire.

nothing more than a glorified crew in New Jersey

by denismenace

2/18/2026 at 8:41:57 PM

In this house, Vasco da Gama is a hero, end of story!

by andrepd

2/18/2026 at 9:38:55 PM

There is a very good reason why Portugal and the Netherlands were so similar, in this regard!

by antsou

2/18/2026 at 8:45:03 PM

[dead]

by GrowingSideways

2/18/2026 at 2:59:27 PM

As a Brazilian, the whole improbable (and beautiful) history of Portugal raised by the "Navegações" and how badly they bottled the whole imperium (especially after the Brazilian independence, but one can argue that João VI opened the ports) and the sheer amount of lack of vision in not investing in production is something that will always amaze me.

One can say that it was one of the longest imperiums in history (ending in 1999 with Macau???), but every time that I spend some time in Portuguese cities, I feel just bad. The good thing is that Brazil will carry its tradition for posterity nevertheless.

by braza

2/18/2026 at 11:34:14 PM

> Navegações

You mean "Descobrimentos", although that is kinda old fashioned.

They were "discovering" lands, the same way I discover Disneyland when I get there from the first time.

by JetSpiegel

2/18/2026 at 9:22:04 PM

> but every time that I spend some time in Portuguese cities, I feel just bad

What do you mean? (Asking this as a Portuguese guy who really doesn't feel at home back there any more)

by pdpi

2/19/2026 at 1:33:08 AM

The Chinese selling Portuguese souvenirs made in China?

by Koshkin

2/19/2026 at 11:09:16 AM

That is all over the place in Europe, unfortunely.

The world complains about China, yet gladly pays for their stuff instead of local prices.

by pjmlp

2/19/2026 at 2:02:59 AM

A lot of which are Sino-Portuguese from Macau that moved (or their families moved) after Macau was returned to China...

by Anon84

2/19/2026 at 8:16:26 AM

It was chaotic as always.

Poor corporate planning and execution is a long time Portuguese tradition. It seems our history is written by a few people that somehow emerge from that chaos and manage to put everyone else moving on some direction. Much of the lands overseas were left on their own, abandoned. There was an effort from their side to remain Portuguese because of family ties.

Brazil was different from the start. It was the chance to build a kingdom on a paradise without poverty and the problematic european neighbors. It shocks me to see the old brazilian cities with the same traditional architecture as seen on european portugal but placed in gorgeous locations. When I see those pictures, I understand why so many preferred to stay in Brazil.

Also, Brazil always had a strenght of its own that surpassed anything else seen before. Ships were larger and stronger when built there, population had a level of energy and optimism that surpassed the european counterparts. It was not a surprise when it became the heart and capital of the empire itself.

Just as curious note: Up to this day the spanish have much more respect for the portuguese than vice-versa. I was curious about why it happened that way, one day a old spanish told me something I didn't know: "it's because if we upset they portuguese they'll invade our land and burn Madrid again".

I never knew the portuguese had done such a thing, it isn't mentioned in school nor in popular culture but it did happened. Turns out this was during the wars against Spain, an army group from Brazil arrived to defend Portugal but more than just defending they went straight to the capital and subjugated it completely. This left such an impact on the self-esteem of the spanish that they haven't forgotten to this day. Brazil is indeed something else.

Um abraço deste lado do Atlântico.

by nunobrito

2/19/2026 at 1:58:30 AM

When xenophobia is a useful social defence :

> They were most successful in Japan, creating about 300,000 converts until their activities induced a wave of xenophobia and they were either expelled or killed.

I am immensely glad that Japan was not colonised early on like the Philippines to their south unfortunately was.

by oska

2/19/2026 at 3:23:28 AM

The peak of Japanese xenophobia in the 1930s however was conversely very unfortunate for everyone nearby.

by ch4s3

2/19/2026 at 3:49:05 AM

I'm very aware, of course, of the horrific crimes that Japan carried out in China and other countries in the 1930s but that is not xenophobia. People going outside their country (to do whatever) are not affected by xenophobia. Xenophobia is a fear of people from outside the country, within that country.

Native cultures (however you want to define that) have always shown some curiousity and openness to visitors from outside the culture but that is balanced by some level of xenophobia too, that ramps up as people inside the culture feel that they are being overwhelmed. Both aspects of openness and shutting out are natural traits in any homogenous culture.

by oska

2/19/2026 at 9:03:33 AM

No xenophobia is “the fear or dislike of people who are perceived as being foreign or strange”. Thats just from the dictionary.

You could call the brutal repression of the Ainu and native Okinawans a kind of xenophobic/racist ultra nationalism. Also Japan’s crimes extend far beyond China, and were especially brutal in Korea were they practiced a horrific form of slavery.

The Japanese are so xenophobic they try to exclude the descendants of Korean slaves who have been living in Japan for a century, have Japanese names, and only speak Japanese. Their xenophobia is not laudable.

by ch4s3

2/19/2026 at 10:00:57 AM

I am very aware of the history of the Japanese with the Ainu, the native Okinawans , and in Korea and Taiwan (and in other countries, as I have said).

The broader point that I am making, outside the specific instance of the Japanese which you seem to want to fixate on, is that xenophobia can be a useful social trait, to avoid a society being overwhelmed by a foreign ingress. This could work just as well for the Ainu, the Okinawans and the Koreans (and I'm sure they exhibited it too, but unfortunately weren't in a position to act on it strongly enough to defend against colonisation/vassalisation).

by oska

2/19/2026 at 3:47:26 PM

I'm clearly pointing out that you were wrong about the definition of xenophobia, and that the xenophobia of Japan was the seed for a fascist genocidal rampage. I would further argue that fearing people perceived as foreign which is what xenophobia is, is not necessary to establish and protect sovereignty or to hold close and nurture cherished cultural institutions.

I'm not fixated, I'm pointing out that xenophobia is actually bad and leads to bad things.

by ch4s3

2/19/2026 at 9:16:36 PM

Every organism must have an immune system which is essential to (but does not guarantee) their survival. Just the same, a society has xenophonia as its immune system. That does not make it 'bad', even though it can produce very ugly effects.

I do not agree with your expansion of xenophobia to the behaviour of a people outside their own country. I do not agree that xenophobia is objectively bad. I also do not agree that "the xenophobia of Japan was the seed for a fascist genocidal rampage" and I doubt that many, if any, historians would agree with such a simplistic assertion either.

Since you seem to have a very closed mind on this subject (i.e. xenophobia == bad, bad, bad) and further discussion seems pointless I'll leave it here.

by oska

2/19/2026 at 12:54:16 AM

go portugal !

by ricardorivaldo

2/18/2026 at 11:42:35 PM

Portugal. The man. The empire.

by seattle_spring

2/18/2026 at 8:49:21 PM

> Information was fed back into a central hub, the India House in Lisbon, where everything was stored under the crown's direct control to inform the next cycle of voyages. This system of feedback and adaptation was highly effective. It was accompanied by a rapid expansion in cartographic knowledge.

This almost feels like state-sponsored R&D, 500 years ago.

by AnimalMuppet

2/18/2026 at 9:07:31 PM

Historically, what R&D there was, was often done by the state; simply because of being the entity with the most spare capacity to do so. It goes a long way back, Egyptian pharoes and Chinese emperors had written in their histories about how they invented things or made economic improvements. These were most likely done by people under their sponsorship, but nevertheless they saw it as part of their role.

by ajb