Columbus [Hardcover]

Hans Koning (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1976

A biography of the fifteenth-century Italian seaman and navigator who unknowingly discovered a new continent while looking for a western route to India.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Koning exposes Columbus's less-than-noble side: his greedy, gold-motivated explorations, his New World ``discovery'' which allowed the plunder and murder of America's native peoples, and his return from his fourth voyage as an old man in disgrace. (June)no PW review

Copyright 1991 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Monthly Review Press; First edition (January 1, 1976)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0853453799
• ISBN-13: 978-0853453796
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,896,579 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The unsanitized version, September 25, 2000

By 

Douglas Doepke (Claremont, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Columbus: His Enterprise: Exploding the Myth (Paperback)

This is a book that attempts to set the record straight on Columbus the man and the chain of events set off by his voyage of discovery. Koning does not delight in debunking the myth, nor does he gloat in the exose'; rather the tone is one of moral despair over the actual facts. Essentially the Christian Spaniards slaughtered and enslaved as they plundered the New World. Convinced he had found the fabled way to Cathay ahead of the rival Portuguese, Columbus appears every bit the avaricious social climber of his era. Skilled and daring, he was also venal and petty. Koning's portrait is not a pretty one, but then we've had enough of those.

Koning takes the revered Samuel Eliot Morrison to task for his sanitized portrait of the Great Explorer. Most reprehensive, in Koning's view, is Morrison's utter disregard for the death and destruction left in Columbus's wake and to which he was a party. Seemingly, Morrison's brand of biographical myopia represents a particularly deadly brand of Western ideology at work, one that cleans up the official record on behalf of the powers that be.

Perhaps most praiseworthy in Koning's tratment are the succinct moral parallels he draws between the civilizing forces of Spain in the New World and their 20th century American counterparts in Vietnam, where additional tens of thousands were slaughtered resisting Western conquest. A book like this exposes unmistakably the self-serving mythology that surrounds so much of our official history. Such versions are not misleading by accident, instead they work to a purpose and there seems no better word for describing that purpose than ideological. They are distortions that preserve current institutions of power; namely, those political and economic arrangements that also happen to be products of Columbus's bloody wake. It's interesting to speculate the direction our polity would take were Koning's book, rather than the traditional sanitized versions, required reading in the nation's high schools. Be that as it may, don't expect to see Koning in a Columbus Day parade any time soon.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Columbus, finally the truth, April 9, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Columbus: His Enterprise: Exploding the Myth (Paperback)

Koning gives a very valid speculation on Columbus' life and voyages. Thoughout the years, the story of Columbus has been twisted and glamourized, making the people of America believe that he was a hero. Koning goes in to great detail when explaining the truths behind all these mythological ideals. It is an easy read as well as a very good piece of writing.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Columbus book review, January 1, 2010

By 

L. Maher (Austin TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Columbus (Hardcover)

Excellent book and well written, though very short. Impossible to put down once you begin reading. I recommend, however, reading other Columbus books to give yourself a more balanced view. This book is very subjective and highly opinionated. All content is anti-Columbus. The book contains many details you'll never find in other history books or public school texts in America. After reading, you'll hunger for more information.