Columbus: The Four Voyages, 1492-1504
Laurence Bergreen
Penguin Books
<p><b> From the author of the Magellan biography, <i>Over the Edge of  the World</i>, a mesmerizing new account of the great explorer   </b></p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p>