Professional Development & Management Strategy: Keeping Up-to-Date on Changes in Resources

Abstract

One of the classics in Portuguese literature is “The Lusiads” by Luiz Vaz de Camoes. “The Lusiads” is composed of ten cantos which celebrate the sixteenth century seafaring voyages of Portuguese explorers. The author has special significance to us because he attended the university at Coimbra in the 1540’s. His life included an unfortunate love affair that led to his banishment from Lisbon; a father who was shipwrecked and drowned off the coast of Goa; the loss of an eye; imprisonment for a street brawl; and trips to China and India. The cantos are the story of one of the great explorations, Vasco da Gama’s voyage to India. It is the story of the Portuguese people who in a little more than a century sailed over the globe, carrying their flag and their faith from Brazil to Japan, and “established not merely an empire but a new conception of empire based on mastery of the ocean routes.”¹