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The European Discovery of America - Volume 1: The Northern Voyages, AD 500-1600 (Hardcover, New edition)
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The European Discovery of America - Volume 1: The Northern Voyages, AD 500-1600 (Hardcover, New edition)
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The late Samuel Eliot Morison, a former U.S. Navy admiral, was also
one of America's premier historians. Combining a first-hand
knowledge of the sea and transatlantic travel with a brilliantly
readable narrative style, he produced what has become nothing less
than the definitive account of the great age of European
exploration. In his riveting and richly illustrated saga, Morison
offers a comprehensive account of all the known voyages by
Europeans to the New World from 500 A.D. to the seventeenth
century. Together, the two volumes of The European Discovery of
America tell the compelling stories of the many intrepid explorers
who made what was then a journey frought with danger--figures as
diverse as Leif Ericsson, Columbus, John Cabot, Jacques Cartier,
Martin Frobisher, Magellan, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Sir Francis
Drake to name but a few. They also follow the adventures of
lesser-known but no less interesting mariners and offer a detailed
look at those who set them forth on their travels.
In the first volume, The Nrthern Voyages--winner of the
prestigious Bancroft Prize for History--Morison re-creates the
lives and perilous times of those who claimed to have seen the
shores of North America in the 600 years after the Norsemen first
landed. He brings to his account a rare immediacy, making the drama
and unpredictability of their voyages as significant in relation to
the people of their era as the astronauts' journeys have been for
our own times. Morison also offers a fascinating look at the
imaginary lands reported by early travelers (such mythical places
as Antilia and the Seven Cities, the glorious Kingdoms of Norumbega
and Saguenay, and Hy-Brasil the Isle of the Blest) and examines as
well the alleged discoverers of these lands. With warmth and wit he
distinguishes fact from fiction, and imaginary explorers and their
exploits from actual men and events.
In the second volume, Morison turns his attention to the
navigators who negotiated the waters of the Caribbean and the
treacherous coasts of South America, even following them as they
ventured ashore to the dark inland of the southern continent. The
Southern Voyages begins with the events leading up to Columbus's
arrival in San Salvador in 1492 and concludes with the discovery of
the southernmost bit of land, Cape Horn, by Dutch explorers in
1616. In between, Morison retraces the routes of all the great
mariners, including a step-by-step account of Magellan's voyage
that would take him around the world. Morison has enlivened his
narrative with a wide range of source material from Italy, Spain,
Portugal, and South America, in the process shedding new light on
questions that have divided scholars througout history: Did Sir
Francis Drake discover San Francisco Bay? Was Amerigo Vespucci a
great explorer or a fraud--or a little of both? What role did the
French have in the European discovery of Brazil?
Each volume brims with contemporary illustrations, maps (many of
them specially drawn for this history) and photographs (often taken
by Morison himself as he flew at low altitude along the coastal
routes of explorers), which together identify virtually every
allusion to land and sea made by the great European navigators in
their ship logs and their later accounts.
With the 500th anniversary of the European arrival in America came
much controversy over Columbus's true legacy. With its lively and
engaging style, and with its unsurpassed understanding of the age,
The European Discovery of America helps put the era of exploration
in much-needed perspective. Anyone interested in the history of
America, indeed, in the history of Western Civilization, will find
these volumes absolutely essential.
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