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It is great to see these old historical books about Goa re-surface. As we
review them along with current writings on Goa, the "old books" are very
valuable. These "old accounts" give us contemporary information in the context
in which it occurred. We do not see this contextual relation in modern
accounts of Goa. Some "modern accounts" do not have access to Goa-information,
that was available to these prior historians. This is because some documents
got burnt, destroyed at sea during their transportation to Portugal or
Brazil, lost, in deep storage archives, and some some in Brazil.
Some contemporary authors write to carve out a niche for themselves i.e. be
provocative. They, thus present Goa is some "new light." Yet some of these
modern accounts usually by foreign professors / PhD students / fictional
authors, (whose writings are then regurgitated by Goan native or diaspora
writers) have only a passing interest in Goa - their PhD thesis, their upcoming
novel, or magazine article. Plainly these accounts amount to BS. Yet their
White skin and their foreign university affiliation, make some of us go ga ..
ga. We do not even take the trouble to piece their information together,
corroborating that with our own wide reading and knowledge of the geography and
history on the ground.
Regards, GL
----------------- Frederick Noronha
THE CITY OF GOA is famed throughout the world: few men are ignorant of its
name, its geographical situation, and its title of capital of the Portuguese
Asia.... -- Denis L.
Cottineau de Kloguen, in 'An Historical Sketch of Goa' (1835).
