Columbus : the four voyages

Summary: Christopher Columbus's 1492 voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in search of a trading route to China, and his unexpected landfall in the Americas, is a watershed event in world history. Yet Columbus made three more voyages within the span of only a decade, each designed to demonstrate that he could sail to China within a matter of weeks and convert those he found there to Christianity. These later voyages were even more adventurous, violent, and ambiguous, but they revealed Columbus's uncanny sense of the sea, his mingled brilliance and delusion, and his superb navigational skills. In all these exploits he almost never lost a sailor. By their conclusion, however, Columbus was broken in body and spirit. If the first voyage illustrates the rewards of exploration, the latter voyages illustrate the tragic costs- political, moral, and economic.

Record details

ISBN: 9780670023011
ISBN: 0670023019
Physical Description: print
xvii, 423 pages, [48] pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps (some color) ; 25 cm
Publisher: New York : Viking Adult, 2011.
Copyright: ©2011

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

Part One: Discovery -- Thirty-three Days -- Son of Genoa -- Shipwreck -- 'The People from the Sky' -- Part Two: Conquest -- River of Blood -- Rebellion -- Among the Taínos -- Interlude -- The Columbian Exchange -- Part Three: Decadence -- 'A Great Roaring' -- Roldán's Revolt -- 'Send Me Back in Chains' -- Part Four: Recovery -- El Alto Viaje -- Castaways in Paradise -- February 29, 1504 -- Epilogue: Columbus Day