audiobook The Tropics of Empire: Why Columbus Sailed South to the Indies (Transformations: Studies in the History of Science and Technology) by Nicolás Wey Gómez in History

Review

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. A gorgeous and crucial bookBy Diana WilsonAll the scholarship on Columbus that preceded Tropics of Empire came to seem limited after publication of this book; a gigantic study that explores concepts of latitude as well as attitude—what drove the explorer to sail south. Columbus carried with him ideas and practices of an emerging nation state; Fernando and Isabel’s Spain; that would come to be regarded as colonialist. Columbus’ assumptions about the nature of places—habitable or inhabitable---were forged both in the late 15th-century climate and in his reading of Aristotle; Ptolemy; and Pierre d’Ailly. This is a magnificent book by a superb scholar that belongs in the library of anyone interested in the “discovery” of America.0 of 8 people found the following review helpful. Long Way to Surf for a Discovery ChannelBy DENNIS ROHATYNThe author writes: " . . . for obvious reasons . . . Columbus preferred to attribute to the lands he had discovered a temperatenessthat in every way alluded to the general perfection of Eden" (224). In other words; he got lost; lucked out; then made the best of it.Likewise; " . . . even as the explorer Columbus saw himself southing through marvelous suburbs of a miraculous Eden; the colonizerColumbus would continue to see; and to treat; its peoples as the childish or monstrous inhabitants at the mouth of Hell" (434). Thus;as Montaigne said a century later; "they don't wear britches": they're naked and unashamed; so they must all be devils; Satan's tools. Every sentence in this brick of a book is like that: clumsy; verbose; stuffed with pedantry; and flatulent. The simplest points get statedin the most complicated; roundabout way; Trivialities are conflated with profundity. And everything Columbus did is part of a plan; or stems from a world-view which is oppressive yet in its own way consistent; or at least consistent with European aims (settlement; enslavement; conquest) and vile racist mythology. The denunciation may be accurate; but the plan was botched;if there ever was one. By making the whole thing seem foreordained; Gomez converts Catholicism into Calvinism; as if foreseeingthe Reformation. By imposing a telos where there was only greed; or avarice and ambition; Gomez gives Columbus too much creditfor being the devil himself; and pays little or no attention to the vagaries of nature; as opposed to a priori rules; principles; systems.For all of his erudition; Gomez would benefit from reading Machiavelli on fortune; Thucydides on the relation between chance andfate; or Nick Herbert's reliable intro. to quantum mechanics. Instead; he gives himself entirely too much "latitude" and ends up onthe beach; alongside his own white (multi-cultural) whale. Next time; pick a destination; but avoid PC; plotting and predestination.Get rid of Aristotle; Albertus Magnus; and even the great Las Casas (an anachrnism; in this casas). Write about what happened;not what you misinterpreted. And do get rid of all that excess verbal baggage: as Mies van der Rohe wrote so well; less is more.