Modern views of Columbus are overshadowed by guilt about past
conquests. Credit for discovering the New World, we are told,
belongs to its original inhabitants rather than any European, and
Columbus gave those inhabitants nothing apart from death, disease
and destruction. Yet for the Old World of Europe the four voyages
of Columbus brought revelation where before there had been only
myths and guesswork. People had thought it was only the great
distance that made it impossible to reach Asia sailing west from
Spain. No one had predicted that a vast continent stood in the way.
And indeed, for Columbus himself, the revolution of understanding
was too much to comprehend. He had counted on a new route to Asia
that would bring him glory, riches and titles, and the thought of
an unknown and undeveloped continent held no attractions. The
trials and disappointments of the great explorer are graphically
detailed in this biography first published in 1828, when Washington
Irving was America's most famous writer.
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