Christopher Columbus

Description

Long before he made his fateful crossing of the Atlantic, Christopher Columbus learned his seamanship as a young man in the Mediterranean and then in the service of the King of Portugal. But soon his eyes turned to the ocean and what lay beyond. Opposition to his idea of finding the East by sailing west was based on differing ideas of the size and shape of the world. To the end of his days, Columbus insisted that where his ship came aground was in the Indies, even when it became clear to his contemporaries that they were in fact in an area of the world previously unknown to Europeans. Bradford portrays Columbus's genius, stubbornness, greed, and stupidity, mixed with bravery and masterly navigation skills. A great book gives us a true and balanced portrait of a great explorer who forever changed the world. Review: A Flawed Genius - This is a very good biography of Christopher Columbus. Ernle Bradford presents a very balanced account of Columbus’ life, including all of his faults and mistakes. Yet throughout the entire account, Bradford does the world a signal service by always situating Columbus within the time and world he lived in, avoiding the temptation to judge Columbus by modern standards. What emerges is a very flawed genius. Columbus possessed extraordinary abilities in seamanship, and demonstrated great tenacity during his prolonged season of seeking royal sponsors for his first voyage westward. At the same time, he was a very flawed man, beginning with his miscalculation of the size of the world, which he stubbornly insisted upon, despite the best evidence that the world was considerably larger. Columbus’ great fortune was that he did find land precisely where he expected, though he never did find China, Japan, India, or the Spice Islands, as he originally intended. Columbus’ second great flaw was his preoccupation with finding gold. The Biblical verse that comes to my mind is “For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” This preoccupation with finding gold, a preoccupation that he shared with many other Spaniards who sailed to the New World, came into conflict with his other goal, winning natives to the Christian faith, eventually tainting the Gospel message in the Americas. Bradford also shows us that Columbus was clearly responsible for initiating Spain’s involvement in slavery, a practice that brought much suffering to the peoples of Latin America. Columbus’ third great flaw was that he was simply not suited to be a colonial administrator. While Bradford is careful to point out that Columbus was facing a situation that was historically unprecedented—everything he did, especially during his first two voyages, was happening for the very first time, and Columbus therefore had no historical precedents to guide him—he nonetheless demonstrates that Columbus was patently unsuitable to holding the reins of give in the New World. Columbus’ first and greatest talent was always his amazing skills as a mariner. In the end, Bradford concludes that despite his many flaws, we should celebrate Columbus for his extraordinary vision and seamanship that led to the discovery of the New World. Having read this excellent book, I find myself in agreement. We must not overlook the great tragedies that flowed from Columbus’ historic voyages, yet we should also never forget that it was his vision, his relentless perseverance, and his exceptional seamanship that literally opened up an entirely new world to the people of Europe. Review: A very good account of the life of Columbus - This is a well researched book on this historical figure. It gives the discovery of America a three-dimensional picture of what happened, most of it unknown by this reader till now. On one hand one must applaud the quite obsessive desire of Columbus to push the envelop, and his incredible persistence at pursuing his goal in spite of the obstacles. on the other hand, it is sad to realize that this already was the beginning of the end for those Caribbean people. What I find quite extraordinary is the fact that during those 10 years or so that Columbus was in the area, he believed all the while he was somewhere on the coast of China or Japan! He had read Marco Polo's account and it was logical for him to think so. The whole book is very revealing and very entertaining.