The Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy - Hardcover

Sale, Kirkpatrick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 039457429X ISBN 13: 9780394574295

Publisher: Knopf, 1990

Synopsis

A reassessment of Columbus and his exploration of the New World demonstrates how European practices of environmental exploitation transformed the New World and all but destroyed the native cultures

About this title

From Library Journal

What distinguishes this book from numerous others (some 150) published on Columbus in this century is Sale's attempt to separate the man from the legend. He returns to the original sources to take stock of the "historical Columbus" and then traces the growth of the "heroic Columbus." Overall, his portrait of Columbus is not flattering. A rootless man who never fully understood the enormity of his discovery, Columbus spent his declining years making unreasonable demands of his sovereigns for his heirs. Sale reminds us that part of the Columbian legacy was environmental despoliation and destruction of native cultures. Most fascinating is his tracing of the Columbus legend from its origins in the 16th century to the present. The story of his transformation from a simple sea captain to a tragic hero is an engaging one, well told and copiously documented here. In the flood of new Columbus scholarship, this certainly merits a place on all libraries' shelves. BOMC and Quality Paperback Book Club alternates.
- Brian E. Coutts, Western Ken tucky Univ. Libs., Bowling Green
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly

Sale views Columbus as seed-bearer of a European civilization of conquest, violence, ecological plunder and intolerance. Cast as a magnificent voyage of discovery into Columbus's psyche and the character of the New World, this demythologizing biographical adventure profiles an isolated, unattached explorer given to self-deception, full of millennial obsessions about the end of the world. Sale ( Human Scale ) credits Columbus with the birth of American slavery and of Euro-colonialism. Examining Jamestown, "the second successful invasion of America," and its aftermath, he explores how native North American societies, for the most part peaceful and communitarian, were devastated by epidemics and whites' encroachments with attendant environmental destruction. His wide-angled history represents a major rethinking of the relationship between Europe and America. BOMC and QPB alternates.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 039457429X
• ISBN 13: 9780394574295
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 453