The Longest Voyage: Circumnavigators in the Age of Discovery

Author:   Robert Silverberg
Publisher:   Ohio University Press
Edition:   1
ISBN:  

9780821411926


Pages:   544
Publication Date:   01 July 1997
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   Out of stock   Availability explained
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.

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The Longest Voyage: Circumnavigators in the Age of Discovery


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Overview

Robert Silverberg's The Longest Voyage captures the drama and danger and personalities in the colorful story of the first voyages around the world. In only a century, circumnavigators in small ships charted the coast of the New World and explored the Pacific. Characterized by fierce nationalism, competitiveness, and bloodshed, it was a century much like our own. These accounts begin with Magellan's unprecedented 1519-1522 circumnavigation, providing an immediate, exciting, and intimate glimpse into that historic venture. The story includes frequent threats of mutiny; the nearly unendurable extremes of heat, cold, hunger, thirst, and fatigue; the fear, the tedium, the moments of despair; the discoveries of exotic new people and strange new lands, and, finally, Magellan's own dramatic death during a fanatic attempt to convert Philippine islanders to Christianity. From the intense and brooding Magellan to the glamorous and dashing Sir Francis Drake, from Thomas Cavendish, who set off to plunder Spain's American gold, to the Dutch, whose number included pirates as well as explorers and merchants, The Longest Voyage is filled with seagoing exploits. Silverberg brings these early ocean explorers to life in The Longest Voyage. Captured within the total context of political climate, social values, and historic change that made the Age of Discovery one of excitement and drama, Magellan, Drake, Cavendish, Noort, Spilbergen, Schouten, and Le Mair are strangely contemporary.

Full Product Details

Author:   Robert Silverberg
Publisher:   Ohio University Press
Imprint:   Ohio University Press
Edition:   1
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 3.10cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.703kg
ISBN:  

9780821411926


ISBN 10:   0821411926
Pages:   544
Publication Date:   01 July 1997
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock   Availability explained
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.

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Reviews

“[Silverberg] vividly chronicles the heroics, the suffering, and the patriotism, cruelty, and greed that motivated most of the explorers cum privateers/pirates and their royal and private financial backers, in the blood competition for the riches of the Indies.”


Tuesday, September 20, 1519. The sails fill with breeze. . . . The round world awaits its conqueror. He will reveal to man the nature of man's planet; he will perish; he will live forever. You immediately recognize the screedish pen of the tireless Robert Silverberg, here introducing the simple history of the first six circumnavigations - the grandest maritime adventure. Quoting frequently from contemporary accounts, Silverberg reconstructs the voyages of Magellan, Drake, Cavendish, and three Dutch explorers, Noort, Spilbergen, and Le Maire; he offers no new research and his analyses of the impact or importance of each of these miracles of seamanship can only be termed nugatory - Drake's gave psychological impetus to England's expanding sea power; Noort's expedition of purely symbolic value to the Dutch; etc. But like his many other histories, this has that ruthless readability and insouciant mindlessness which appeal so well to the lay audience Silverberg caters to. (Kirkus Reviews)


[Silverberg] vividly chronicles the heroics, the suffering, and the patriotism, cruelty, and greed that motivated most of the explorers cum privateers/pirates and their royal and private financial backers, in the blood competition for the riches of the Indies. -- Scan-A-Book


Author Information

Robert Silverberg, a renowned science fiction author and recipient of multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards, also writes books reflecting his special interest in myth, history, archaeology, and anthropology.

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