Take a photo of a barcode or cover
socraticgadfly 's review for:
Columbus: The Four Voyages
by Laurence Bergreen
Solid but not spectacular. Bergreen notes that Columbus wasn't a rogue as well as not being a saint. He had enemies at the Spanish court willing to undercut him, and he also became more "hardened" toward the Caribbean natives, it seems, with each additional voyage.
Bergreen makes clear he was an inept administrator. And, he was a religious mystic, especially if that mysticism included Christopher Columbus. That said, the book is a bit uneven at times.
For instance, when Bergreen talks about Columbus using an almanac's prediction of a lunar eclipse to cow natives on one voyage, he talks as if this were the first lunar eclipse since one in 1453 at the time of the fall of Constantinople. And, of course, it wasn't. Ideally, with half-star ratings, this would be a 3.5.
Bergreen makes clear he was an inept administrator. And, he was a religious mystic, especially if that mysticism included Christopher Columbus. That said, the book is a bit uneven at times.
For instance, when Bergreen talks about Columbus using an almanac's prediction of a lunar eclipse to cow natives on one voyage, he talks as if this were the first lunar eclipse since one in 1453 at the time of the fall of Constantinople. And, of course, it wasn't. Ideally, with half-star ratings, this would be a 3.5.