Overview

Five hundred years after he set sail, Christopher Columbus is universally renowned as the man who discovered the New World, and is also widely held responsible for what went wrong there in the years that followed. This book, by acclaimed scholar Carol Delaney, will change that understanding of the man and his mission. Carol Delaney describes how Columbus's true motive for finding a western route to the Orient was not simply the quest for glory and riches, but to fund a new crusade - a goal that motivated him until the day he died. Rather than an avaricious glory hunter, Carol Delaney reveals him as a man of extraordinary determination, passion and conviction. Even in the face of ridicule, Columbus believed that he was destined to play a decisive role in retaking Jerusalem, which he and his contemporaries believed was the key to the future of the Christian world. Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem also entails the remarkable and chaotic events that struck Europe in the years preceding Columbus's birth and brings the challenges of ocean navigation dramatically to life. By putting Christopher Columbus fully in the context of his times, Carol Delaney has created a thought provoking and timely reappraisal of a misunderstood man and his legacy.

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9780715645826

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Brilliant. Enlightening. The surprise here is not that a vaunted academic like Delaney has written such a deeply researched take on the Columbus legacy, but that she does so with page-turning style, effortlessly transporting the modern reader into the minds and motivations of 15th-century Europe -- Martin Dugard, author of The Last Voyage of Columbus A new and provocative interpretation of Columbus. Carol Delaney uses her training as a cultural anthropologist to brilliantly explicate Columbus's strange, apocalyptic world. By being more sensitive to the differentness of the past than most historians, she has written a remarkable work of history, and one that is utterly accessible -- Gordon S. Wood, author of The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States A welcome reappraisal of Columbus and his legacy * Kirkus Reviews *

'Brilliant. Enlightening. The surprise here is not that a vaunted academic like Delaney has written such a deeply researched take on the Columbus legacy, but that she does so with page-turning style, effortlessly transporting the modern reader into the minds and motivations of 15th-century Europe' Martin Dugard, author of The Last Voyage of Columbus 'A new and provocative interpretation of Columbus. Carol Delaney uses her training as a cultural anthropologist to brilliantly explicate Columbus's strange, apocalyptic world. By being more sensitive to the differentness of the past than most historians, she has written a remarkable work of history, and one that is utterly accessible' Gordon S. Wood, author of The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States 'A welcome reappraisal of Columbus and his legacy' Kirkus Reviews

Author Information

Carol Delaney received an MTS from Harvard Divinity School and a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Chicago. She is now a professor emerita at Stanford University and a research scholar at Brown University. Delaney is the author of several books, including Abraham on Trial: The Social Legacy of Biblical Myth.

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