(pb; 1976, 1991: nonfiction)
From the back cover
“Most of us been taught to
think of Christopher Columbus as a single-minded, courageous visionary whose
navigational skills led him to ‘discover’ the Americas. In this . . revisionist biography accessible to people of
all ages, Koning gives us the true history of Columbus’s life and voyages.
“Koning describes how Columbus’s consuming drive to send ‘mountains of gold’ back to Spain shaped his life, beginning the story with his childhood in Genoa and ending after his return from his fourth and final voyage, an old man in disgrace. He shows how Columbus’s ‘discovery’ led to the enrichment of the conquerors through the plunder and murder of the native peoples of the Americas.
“In an afterword for teachers,
Bill Bigelow—a high school social studies teacher and the author of
several curricula—shows how the book can
be imaginatively used in the classroom to teach students to read history
skeptically.”
Review
The “From the back cover”
description pretty much sums up what I’d write as a review for this compelling,
disturbing, necessary, cut-to-it and more honest portrayal of Columbus and the
world he inhabited and exploited. It’s a simply stated, stunning and smart nonfiction
book that I will keep—I usually give away or sell books when I’m done reading
them—and plan to read again, sometime in the distant future. Worth owning, and
one of my favorite reads of 2025.
No comments:
Post a Comment