COLUMBUS

The first complete portrait in over half a centrury, takes the full measure of the explorer's remarkable career, spinning an epic tale to match the events of an epic life.

Christopher Columbus's 1492 voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in search of a trading route to China, and his unexpected landfall in the Americas, is a watershed event in world history. Yet Columbus made three more voyages within the span of only a decade, each designed to demonstrate that he could sail to China within a matter of weeks and convert those he found there to Christianity. These later voyages were even more adventurous, violent, and ambiguous, but they revealed Columbus's uncanny sense of the sea, his mingled brilliance and delusion, and his superb navigational skills. In all these exploits he almost never lost a sailor. By their conclusion, however, Columbus was broken in body and spirit. If the first voyage illustrates the rewards of exploration, the latter voyages illustrate the tragic costs political, moral, and economic. In rich detail Laurence Bergreen re-creates each of these adventures as well as the historical background of Columbus's celebrated, controversial career. Written from the participants' vivid perspectives, this breathtakingly dramatic account will be embraced by readers of Bergreen's previous biographies of Marco Polo and Magellan and by fans of Nathaniel Philbrick, Simon Winchester, and Tony Horwitz. Laurence Bergreen is the prizewinning author of eight previous works of nonfiction, including Marco Polo, Over the Edge of the World, Voyage to Mars, and Capone. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Newsweek, and Esquire. He lives in New York City.