The Worlds of Christopher Columbus

ISBN-13: 9780521446525 / Angielski / Miękka / 1993 / 340 str.

William D. Phillips; Jr. Phillips; Carla Rahn Phillips

Opis

When Columbus was born in the mid-fifteenth century, Europe was isolated in many ways from the rest of the Old World and Europeans did not even know that the world of the Western Hemisphere existed. The voyages of Christopher Columbus opened a period of European exploration and empire building that breached the boundaries of those isolated worlds and changed the course of human history. This book describes the life and times of Christopher Columbus. The story is not just of one man's rise and fall. Seen in its broader context, his life becomes a prism reflecting the broad range of human experience for the past five hundred years.

Recenzje

"The Worlds of Christopher Columbus unquestionably stands out in the recent tide of literature on Columbus and the early Spanish expansion in the Americas, thanks to William and Carla Phillips's meticulous use of the evidence and their systematic endeavor to set the Columbus story into a broader historical context. The resulting reconstruction displays qualities that make the book indispensable and stimulating for the specialist and attractive to the general reader....probably the most useful study of Columbus currently available to English-speaking readers. It promises to exercise a powerful influence both in research and in teaching. Given its accessibility, clarity, and helpful documentation, it will certainly fulfill its mission of presenting 'the best evidence about Columbus and his worlds to a broad reading public' (p. ix), one of the ideals behind the recent and controversial Columbian Quincentenary." Ivana Elbl, Journal of World History

Spis treści

Acknowledgements; A note on names; 1. The worlds of Christopher Columbus; 2. Old worlds in isolation; 3. The quest for trade and Christians; 4. Tools of expansion; 5. Columbus's early years in Genoa and Portugal; 6. Columbus in Spain; 7. The first voyage; 8. Columbus and the New World; 9. Conquest and colonisation: Spain in the Caribbean; 10. Coercion and commerce: the birth of Empire; 11. The post-Columbian world; Bibliography; Index.