During the time he spent in the Portuguese islands of Porto Santo and Madeira, Cristopher Columbus, a navigator from Genoa, was in charge of a dying sailor, from Castile whose caravel had been carried by the current from the Gulf of Guinea to a remote sea, possibly the Caribean.

On his deathbed, this man had told

Columbus the secret of some lands where Siberians had arrived during the Pleistocene and some documents about some possible previous trips. This sailor assured that such lands he had achieved carried by the currents were the same ones he was referring to.

When Columbus arrived in Spain, he tried to convince the Crown of Castile about his projects, which were precisely the same ones that Isaiah had prophesied as destined for getting the limits of the horizons. During his description, Columbus looked so sure that both the Queen Isabel and the King Fernando wondered whether he was trying to conceal a proved reality, a mistery he took to his grave.

When Columbus asked them for a subsidy, Fernando el Catolico commented him that coffers were empty at that point as they had just subjugated the whole Al-Andalus after the seizure of Granada and therefore the defeat of the most unlucky Nasrid king, Boabdil, known as "the little man."

Due to the Spanish explorers of the 15th century, Spain became the biggest commercial power amongst the European countries. They built up settlements which would last until three centuries later in a colonizing expansive process; until the loss of Spanish power on such territories from the decade of 1810s on, when the Independence began. Since the late 18th century, until the early 19th Century, the West witnessed a series of chain revolutions which affected Western Europe and Spanish America at the same time.

The invasion of Napoleon, Francisco de Miranda, Simon Bolivar, Masonic lodges, together with envies, betrayals or lovers make this book to be a thrilling adventure based on historic real.

If you centre a globe on Kiritimati (Christmas Island), all you see around it is a vast expanse of ocean. Islands of various sizes float in view while glimpses of continents encroach on the fringes, but this is a view dominated by water. The immense stretch of the Pacific Ocean is inhabited by a diverse array of peoples and cultures bound by a common thread: their relationship with the sea. The rich history of the Pacific is explored through specific objects, each one beautifully illustrated, from the earliest human engagement with the Pacific through to the modern day. With entries covering mapping, trade, whaling, flora and fauna, and the myriad vessels used to traverse the ocean, Pacific builds on recent interest in the voyages of James Cook to tell a broader history. This visually stunning publication highlights the importance of an ocean that covers very nearly a third of the surface of the globe, and which has dramatically shaped the world and people around it.

'This was much more than a bunch of guys out on an exploring and collecting expedition. This was a military expedition into hostile territory'. In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson selected his personal secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis, to lead a pioneering voyage across the Great Plains and into the Rockies. It was completely uncharted territory; a wild, vast land ruled by the Indians. Charismatic and brave, Lewis was the perfect choice and he experienced the savage North American continent before any other white man. UNDAUNTED COURAGE is the tale of a hero, but it is also a tragedy. Lewis may have received a hero's welcome on his return to Washington in 1806, but his discoveries did not match the president's fantasies of sweeping, fertile plains ripe for the taking. Feeling the expedition had been a failure, Lewis took to drink and piled up debts. Full of colourful characters - Jefferson, the president obsessed with conquering the west; William Clark, the rugged frontiersman; Sacagawea, the Indian girl who accompanied the expedition; Drouillard, the French-Indian hunter - this is one of the great adventure stories of all time and it shot to the top of the US bestseller charts. Drama, suspense, danger and diplomacy combine with romance and personal tragedy making UNDAUNTED COURAGE an outstanding work of scholarship and a thrilling adventure.

David Livingstone (1813-1873) was one of the supreme representatives of the British Empire. Yet his career suffered many set-backs during his own life-time, and since his death his reputation has swung between extremes of adulation and dismissal. Were his epic journeys through Africa purely to save souls and counter the slave trade? Or were they the first steps towards bringing the peoples of Central Africa under the control of Europeans who would destroy their values and exploit them economically? Beyond these questions, there lies the puzzle of Livingstone's own character and its contradictions.
Livingstone's career was certainly an extraordinary one. Born in poverty in Blantyre, Scotland, he educated himself by heroic endeavor, later proving him-self to be a remarkable linguist and scientist. His missionary journeys brought him into contact with a wide range of African peoples, for whom he showed remarkable sympathy. "David Livingstone: Mission and Empire is a scholarly and readable account of Livingstone's life and of his achievements.

Human Beings is an entertaining glance at intersecting lives. This wild set of true, short stories knits a view of humanity through the eyes of an observer who believes that human beings have small purposes -and a big purpose-in their ordinary, day-to-day living.

For more than a hundred years after Europeans had begun populating the Atlantic shores of North America, the Pacific coast of that continent remained a blank on their maps and in their minds. When Russians from Siberia first sighted the mountains of Alaska in 1741, they called it the Great Land. In fact they were glimpsing part of a 4,000-mile stretch of virgin coastline, reaching from Western Alaska to Oregon to Southern California. As far as Spanish Mexico, all was uncharted and unknown. Its water, its salmon, its sea otters, its sunshine, its trees and its harbours remained the preserve of Native Americans, and were entirely free of international commerce.But time was not standing still. In the second half of the eighteenth century, Europeans were aggressively taking their way of life to every corner of the globe. Northwest America could not remain exempt from this process. Who would be the first to settle the coast that was destined to become the cultural and economic powerhouse of the world? The answer to this question was not obvious. This book is the story of how Western America very nearly came to be a possession of the Empire of Russia." A fascinating and near-forgotten history brought vividly to life."Colin Thubron"What a terrific book - it's incredibly well researched and written and tells a story about which I, for one, knew nothing! I was amazed by the cast of characters that Jeremy uncovered - battling away in those terrible conditions. It makes our lives seem very tame. What a triumph!"Rosie Boycott"The central premise of this wonderful book is, at first sight, scarcely believable: that the world's largest country was on the brink of extending its empire along the entire length of America's Pacific shore, thereby making San Francisco as Russian as St Petersburg and annexing Hawaii as an outpost of Siberia. Yet through meticulous research combined with a natural flair for story-telling, Jeremy Atiyah bestows this astonishing sequence of events with credibility. He weaves a compelling tale of heroism, intrigue and betrayal that begins with Catherine the Great and ends in the twilight of the Russian Empire and the ascendancy of America."Simon Calder"The story of Russia's colony in America is known to very few people in Britain. Not only, however, is it one of history's odder side-paths, packed with strange people and events: it is also a fascinating "might-have-been". Jeremy Atiyah tells this story in an accurate and informative narrative which is also great fun to read".Professor Dominic Lieven, London School of Economics, author of The Russian Empire and its Rivals."What if the Russian Empire had succeeded in colonising North America's Pacific coast? And why did they not succeed? Just how close did they come to doing so - at a time when the Atlantic colonies were struggling to create the United States? Jeremy Atiyah offers intriguing answers to questions that I never knew enough even to ask."Lord Howe of Aberavon"Not many people know that Alaska and the whole north-west coast down to San Francisco almost became Russian. Jeremy Atiyah tells an astonishing story of Russian adventurers, half a world away from St Petersburg, struggling for empire, financed by furs and sea-otter skins. As if a brutal climate and hostile natives were not enough, the Russians had to contend with the growing ambitions of the Spanish, American and British governments. With Europe immersed in the Napoleonic Wars, the area became a giant chess-board of trade, diplomacy, exploration and adventure, played out across the whole North Pacific triangle, with Hawaii a paradise against the cold, damp hell of the northwest coast - at its apex. The Russians came out top. Russia owned Alaska until 'the cold dead hand of St Petersburg' threw away their most distant outpost by selling the whole region to the US in 1867, for a mere $7.2 million. This is surely one of the most astonishing real-estate deals in history. It is a tribute to Atiyah's skill as a historian and story-teller that he balances sources from all nationalities, while bringing these wilderness regions and their cast of extremely odd personalities to vivid life."John Man, writer, author of The Guttenberg Revolution, Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan: Life, Death and Resurrection and Kublai Khan."Jeremy Atiyah's The Great Land is a welcome addition to the literature on Russian presence on the Pacific Rim. Based on his judicious use of sources, the result is a highly readable and instructive analysis of Russian attempts to establish colonial footholds in Alaska, California and Hawaii at the end of the 18th and early 19th centuries. This book belongs in every library and in the collection of every history buff." Basil Dmytryshyn, Professor Emeritus of History, Portland State University.

Nueve semanas es la cronica de un viaje a Europa que se hizo en Familia por diferentes Pais como Francia, Espana, Suiza e Italia. El viaje comienza un dia primero de Junio, desde Denver, USA el papa con sus dos hijos Luis Umberto e Idemar quienes se encuentran en Niza con Carolina, para completar la familia en la septima semana del viaje y continuar juntos hasta el regreso a casa el cuatro de Agosto. Sucesos, historia y diferencia anecdotas son relatadas en tal forma que convierten a esta narracion es un libro ligero y con muchos puntos interesantes de conocer sobre el viejo continente.

Join the Search for Lost Treasure First popularized by folklorist and author J. Frank Dobie in his book Apache Gold and Yaqui Silver in 1928, the legend of the Lost Adams Diggings is one of the most mythologized tales of lost treasure on the continent. In the 1860s, Gold was taken from Adams' canyon in enormous quantities, with nuggets ranging from dust-size to some as large as hen's eggs, all being plucked from the bottom of a shallow stream. This true story of the Lost Adams Diggings starts with the discovery of the rich deposit of gold in a remote mountain range, and ends with the author's own story of search and discovery in the twentieth century.

This book provides a comparative analysis of 30 American interventions into Third World countries. An historical approach is used to place the featured cases into a more general history of American Diplomacy. The author uses his assessments to prove that U.S. foreign policy has been driven by the goal of being the ultimate power in the global capitalist economic system. The author makes his work unique by giving a critical view of America's place in the world during an anticipated time of war and raised patriotism. He provides a scholarly look at U.S. diplomacy leading up to the era of "the War on Terror." Sullivan explains how over the past 50 years the U.S. has come to succeed Europe as ruler of the global economic system. The "political systems" which have been promoted by the U.S. to preserve worldwide capitalism range from one-party rule to monarchies and recurring civil war. The interventions discussed have proved to be short-term successes for U.S. policy, but more often tragic for the local societies affected. Sullivan draws on his 1996 release Comparing State Polities to create a number of tables that place U.S. involvement into geographic and hierarchic perspective. The reader is ultimately provided with a provocative thesis that challenges traditional interpretations of America's role in the world. This book will be an asset to any undergraduate college student taking classes in political science or history. It will also appeal to a general audience.

He journeyed farther than his near contemporary Marco Polo, though Muslim scholar Ibn Battuta (1304-c. 1377) is barely remembered at all compared to that legendary traveler. But Battuta's story is just as fascinating, as this 1829 translation of his diaries, by British Orientalist REV. SAMUEL LEE (1783 -1852), demonstrates. Embarking upon what would eventually be a 27-year pilgrimage, Battuta traveled through East Africa, the Middle East, India, China, and beyond, bringing him to most of the 14th-century Islamic world. Rife with beautiful descriptions of the exotic peoples he met and landscapes he saw, this little--known classic of medieval literature will enthrall scholars of Islamic history and armchair travelers alike.