02. Christopher Columbus

Major Figures in Spanish Culture

No one from Spain’s past is more famed, more hated or more misunderstood than Cristopher Columbus. Misplaced vengeance topples Columbus’ statues. Tweets traduce him. He was mendacious, egotistical, irrational, self-righteous, humourless, and mean. But he had virtues to balance his vices—including dazzling bravery, a kind of ingenuous charm, and a confiding nature. He was, moreover, sympathetic towards cultures other than his own, including Native Americans’. In this podcast, Felipe Fernández-Armesto, William P. Reynolds Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame, talks about this outstanding figure in Spanish culture.

Books and publications about Christopher Columbus

Bankoff, Greg "Aeolian Empires: The Influence of Winds and Currents on Maritime Expansion in the Age of Sail", Environment and History, 23, 2017.

Colón, Fernando, Historie del S.D. Fernando Colombo: nelle quali s'ha particolare, & vera relatione della vita, & de' fatti dell'Ammiraglio D. Christoforo Colombo, suo padre, Venice, appresso Francesco de' Franceschi Sanese, 1571.

Crosby, Alfred W., The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492, Westport, CT, Praeger, 2003.

Fernández-Armesto, Felipe, Columbus on Himself, London, Folio Society, 1992.

Fernández-Armesto, Felipe, Columbus, London, Duckworth, 1996.

Fernández-Armesto, Felipe, "The Stranger-Effect in Early Modern Asia", Itinerario, 24.2, 2000.

Fernández-Armesto, Felipe, "The Origins of the European Atlantic", Itinerario, 24.1, 2000.

Flint, Valerie I. J., The Imaginative Landscape of Christopher Columbus, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1992.

Helms, Mary W., Ulysses’ Sail, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1988.

Irving A., Leonard, Books of the Brave, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1949.

Phillips, William D. and Phillips, Carla Rahn, The Worlds of Christopher Columbus, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Phillips, William D., Slavery in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia, Philadelphia, Penn Press, 2013.

Wey-Gómez, Nicolás, The Tropics of Empire: Why Columbus Sailed South to the Indies, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2008.

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