In recent years, the enemies of Christopher Columbus have succeeded in damaging, if not demolishing, his historical reputation. Today, Columbus is seen not as a hero but as an inept sailor turned brutal conqueror, and his voyage is taught as the opening assault in a genocidal campaign by cruel imperialists bent on exterminating the peaceful natives who inhabited an idyllic wilderness in harmony with the environment. In this highly controversial book, Thomas Bowden challenges all of these assumptions. As he says in his introductory comments, "The real victim of the incessant attacks on Christopher Columbus is Western civilization itself."
Once upon a time, Columbus was a hero... Sadly, that's not the case today: Some people don't even know who he was, or what he did; while others claim he was a villain, and are advocating for the abolition of Columbus Day and everything he represented. Accusations vary from Columbus being a racist, a rapist, a genocidal maniac, and even that he ran a child sex slave ring. The question is, are these allegations true? And, where are the scholars correcting Columbus' record? Unfortunately, some of the misinformation out there comes from "scholars;" and even those who defend Columbus, won't address the actual story either. In this book, the reader will learn who modern history revisionists claim Columbus was, and what he did, vs. the actual historical accounts, coming from the mouths of those who knew him well, and wrote about them for us. The conclusion will be inevitable, that is, Columbus was a Hero, and his story and legacy need to be rediscovered again today.
He knew nothing of celestial navigation or of the existence of the Pacific Ocean. He was a self-promoting and ambitious entrepreneur. His maps were a hybrid of fantasy and delusion. When he did make land, he enslaved the populace he found, encouraged genocide, and polluted relations between peoples. He ended his career in near lunacy. But Columbus had one asset that made all the difference, an inborn sense of the sea, of wind and weather, and of selecting the optimal course to get from A to B. Laurence Bergreen's energetic and bracing book gives the whole Columbus and most importantly, the whole of his career, not just the highlight of 1492. Columbus undertook three more voyages between 1494 and 1504, each designed to demonstrate that he could sail to China within a matter of weeks and convert those he found there to Christianity. By their conclusion, Columbus was broken in body and spirit, a hero undone by the tragic flaw of pride. If the first voyage illustrates the rewards of exploration, this book shows how the subsequent voyages illustrate the costs - political, moral, and economic.
FIVE HUNDRED YEARS AFTER HE SET SAIL, the dominant understanding of Christopher Columbus holds him responsible for almost everything that went wrong in the New World. Here, finally, is a book that will radically change our interpretation of the man and his mission. Scholar Carol Delaney claims that the true motivation for Columbus’s voyages is very different from what is commonly accepted. She argues that he was inspired to find a western route to the Orient not only to obtain vast sums of gold for the Spanish Crown but primarily to help fund a new crusade to take Jerusalem from the Muslims—a goal that sustained him until the day he died. Rather than an avaricious glory hunter, Delaney reveals Columbus as a man of deep passion, patience, and religious conviction. Delaney sets the stage by describing the tumultuous events that had beset Europe in the years leading up to Columbus’s birth—the failure of multiple crusades to keep Jerusalem in Christian hands; the devastation of the Black Plague; and the schisms in the Church. Then, just two years after his birth, the sacking of Constantinople by the Ottomans barred Christians from the trade route to the East and the pilgrimage route to Jerusalem. Columbus’s belief that he was destined to play a decisive role in the retaking of Jerusalem was the force that drove him to petition the Spanish monarchy to fund his journey, even in the face of ridicule about his idea of sailing west to reach the East. Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem is based on extensive archival research, trips to Spain and Italy to visit important sites in Columbus’s life story, and a close reading of writings from his day. It recounts the drama of the four voyages, bringing the trials of ocean navigation vividly to life and showing Columbus for the master navigator that he was. Delaney offers not an apologist’s take, but a clear-eyed, thought-provoking, and timely reappraisal of the man and his legacy. She depicts him as a thoughtful interpreter of the native cultures that he and his men encountered, and unfolds the tragic story of how his initial attempts to establish good relations with the natives turned badly sour, culminating in his being brought back to Spain as a prisoner in chains. Putting Columbus back into the context of his times, rather than viewing him through the prism of present-day perspectives on colonial conquests, Delaney shows him to have been neither a greedy imperialist nor a quixotic adventurer, as he has lately been depicted, but a man driven by an abiding religious passion.
Was Christopher Columbus a visionary or an opportunist, a rapacious colonist or a Christian mystic? The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Mapmakers gives us a truly judicious portrait of the great navigator--one that is as much about the accretion of the Columbus mythos as it is an absorbing account of his life and character.
Straight Talk From the Firebrand Libertarian Who Struck a Chord Across America Larry Elder tells truths this nation's public figures are afraid to address. In The Ten Things You Can't Say in America, he turns conventional "wisdom" on its head and backs up his commonsense philosophy with cold, hard facts many ignore. Elder says what no one else will: Blacks are more racist than whites. White condescension is mor damaging than white racism There is no health-care crisis The War on Drugs is the new Vietnam...and we're losing Republicans and Democrats are the same beast in different rhetoric Gun control advocates have blood on their hands. America's greatest problem? Illegitimacy. The welfare state is our national narcotic. There is no glass ceiling. The media bias: it's real, it's widespread, it's destructive
