Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem: How Religion Drove the Voyages that Led to America

by Carol Delaney

“One of the 100 best books of the year.” —The Times Literary Supplement Christopher Columbus is reevaluated as a man of deep passion, patience, and religious conviction—on a mission to save Jerusalem from Islam.Five hundred years after he set sail, Columbus is still a controversial figure in history. Debates portray him either as the hero in the great drama of discovery or as an avaricious glory hunter and ruthless destroyer of indigenous cultures. In Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem, Carol Delaney offers a radically new interpretation of the man and his mission, claiming that the true motivation for his voyages is still widely unknown. Delaney argues that Columbus was inspired to find a western route to the Orient not only to obtain vast sums of gold for the Spanish Crown but primarily to fund a new crusade to take Jerusalem from the Muslims before the end of the world—a goal that sustained him until the day he died. Drawing from oft-ignored sources, some from Columbus’s own hand, Delaney depicts her subject as a thoughtful interpreter of the native cultures that he and his men encountered, and tells the tragic story of how his initial attempts to establish good relations with the natives turned badly sour. Showing Columbus in the context of his times rather than through the prism of present-day perspectives on colonial conquests reveals a man who was neither a greedy imperialist nor a quixotic adventurer, but a man driven by an abiding religious passion. Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem is not an apologist’s take, but a clear-eyed, thought-provoking, and timely reappraisal of the man and his legacy.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Religion, American History, Historical, Medieval History

338 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 20, 2011

About the author

Carol Lowery Delaney earned an A.B. in philosophy at Boston University, 1962.
After a ten year hiatus, she entered Harvard Divinity School and received an
M.T.S. 1976, and went on to the University of Chicago for a Ph.D. in cultural
anthropology, 1984.

Her anthropological fieldwork was conducted in Turkey, 1979-82, two years
of which were spent in a relatively remote mountain village. She won the
Galler prize for the most distinguished dissertation in the Division of the Social
Sciences at the University of Chicago. That dissertation was transformed into
a book, The Seed and the Soil: Gender and Cosmology in Turkish Village Society.

After spending a year in Belgium on a Fulbright Fellowship conducting
research among immigrant Turks, she returned to Harvard where she became
Assistant Director of the Center for the Study of World Religions, 1985-87, and
taught several courses at the Divinity School.

She taught at Stanford University in the Department of Cultural and Social
Anthropology from 1987-2006, now emerita. One popular course,
Investigating Culture, became the basis for an innovative textbook,
Investigating Culture: An Experiential Introduction to Anthropology,
third edition forthcoming, early 2017.

While at Stanford she wrote Abraham on Trial: The Social Legacy of Biblical Myth, which was finalist for the National Jewish Book Award (category scholarship) and special mention for the Victor Turner Prize of the Society for Humanistic Anthropology. It was also the inspiration for an opera of the same title, composed by Andrew Lovett, and had its world premier in England, 2005.

Her latest book is Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem. She writes that she had not thought much about Columbus until the fall of 1999 when she was teaching a course called "Millennial Fever" intended to observe the frenzy gripping the United States over the turn of the millennium and to study the history of apocalyptic, millennial thinking. In one of the readings, she came across a reference to Columbus's apocalyptic, millennial beliefs. Neither she nor any of her colleagues had ever heard of them. This drew her to the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University where she spent the summer of 2003 and then returned with an NEH fellowship in 2004-05. Her research was so compelling that she decided to retire from Stanford in order to work on her book about Columbus. For two years, she also taught half time in the Religious Studies Department at Brown.

In addition to numerous articles and invited lectures she has also had, as of this date, 48 letters published in the New York Times, and others in the San Francisco Chronicle, Wall Street Journal, Providence Journal, Harvard Magazine, and Harper’s.

In the spring of 2014 she walked more than 500 miles on the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain and walked 280 miles in the spring of 2015. She walked the Coast to Coast path across England with her brother in May 2016. Carol volunteered at a hostel on the Camino de Santiago and then walked with her brother from Leon to Santiago in Sept-Oct, 2017.

Reviews

[Clark Hinckley · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent biography of Columbus by a social anthropologist. Delaney does an excellent job of placing Columbus in the context of his age. This is the first popular biography of Columbus to deal seriously with the motivations that drove him when he met constant rejection, drawing upon his own writings and particularly upon his Libro de Profecias, general neglected by biographers but essential to understanding Columbus. Delaney's emphasis is on Columbus's goal of creating enough Spanish wealth to fund a new crusade, capture Jerusalem, and rebuild the temple in preparation for the Second Coming, but fails to emphasize his related goal of preaching the Gospel of Christ to all people.

A valuable addition to the library on Columbus. Highly recommend.

[Scriptor Ignotus · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a worthwhile condensation of the primary source material on Columbus, presented with a unique focus on the millenarian eschatology of the late medieval world in which his own understanding of his exploratory mission was inevitably molded. It is widely known that Columbus was seeking a seaward route to East Asia over which his patrons Isabella and Ferdinand could access the wealth of the orient. Many are likewise aware that the impetus for the monarchs of western Europe to discover a maritime pathway to the east was generated in large part by the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, which effectively cut Europe off from the network of overland trade routes extending from Nova Roma to China known today as the “Silk Road”. Very few are aware of the larger eschatological scheme that informed Columbus’s voyages, and in which he envisioned himself playing a critical providential role.

The world of Columbus was rife in apocalyptic expectation. It was widely believed that the Muslims who now occupied both Jerusalem and Constantinople, and who were beginning to make incursions into mainland Europe, were an Antichristic force that would need to be defeated by a united Christendom in order to prepare the way for Christ’s return. The preconditions for the Second Coming included Christian control of Jerusalem, a rebuilt and reconsecrated Temple, and the evangelization of all the people of the world so that everyone would have a chance to take refuge in the Church—the Ark of Salvation—and be spared everlasting torment at the Last Judgment.

Columbus believed that his voyages would contribute to each of these. By accumulating gold from the newly-discovered islands of the “Indies” as well as through trade with the Grand Khan of China, whose kingdom Columbus always believed was just over the western horizon from Hispaniola, Columbus hoped to finance a new crusade to recover Jerusalem and to providentially rebuild the Temple with gold from the Biblical kingdom of Sheba, which he likewise believed to be nearby. He also intended to convert the Grand Khan to Christianity and form an alliance between him and the Catholic Monarchs of Castile and Aragon, so that their combined armies could defeat the forces of Islam. By discovering new islands and bringing the Gospel to a new and apparently irreligious people, Columbus was preparing the remotest vestiges of the human race for the Last Judgment.

As farfetched as some of these beliefs seem today, they were deeply rooted in the cultural world of fifteenth and sixteenth-century Christendom. It is only by reconstructing that world that we can liberate Columbus from lazy, anachronistic appraisals of his life and legacy.

[Shiloah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a sensitive biography, extensively researched from original sources and even many modern archaeological finds substantiating truths.

“Columbus has been dead for more than five hundred years, but he does not rest in peace.
Heated debates about his legacy that began to coalesce around the Quincentennial commemorating his landfall continue to the present, and every year protests against him mar a holiday weekend in October. Like a fallen angel who was proposed for canonization in the nineteenth century, he has crashed to earth in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Where once he was celebrated for the discovery of a new world, now he is blamed for all the calamities that befell that world. The "presentist" perspective that dominates the contemporary view, even among some academ-ics, holds him responsible for consequences he did not intend, expect, or endorse. Judging Columbus from a contemporary perspective rather than from the values and practices of his own time misjudges his motivations and his accomplishment.”

Carol Delaney, Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem

"I believe that in the world there are no better people or a better land. They love their neighbors as themselves, and they have the sweetest speech in the world; and (they are) gentle and are always laughing" (Diario, p. 281). -Christopher Columbus

“Sometimes it's a good thing we don't remember things half as well as books do.
But for them we probably wouldn't know anything for very long. It would all be forgotten: the Trojan War, Columbus, Marco Polo, Shakespeare, all the amazing kings and gods of the past.”

Inkheart, Cornelia Funke

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sympathetic portrait of Columbus that considers him through the lens of his strong religious beliefs and apocalyptic motivation. Good and readable, though fairly brief, it suffers from an inexplicable lack of maps. This is better than the Bergreen book (Columbus: The Four Voyages, 1492-1504) I read five months ago, but it is much less thorough in terms of narrative, and I'm glad I had a grounding in the events from Bergreen before reading this - not to mention being acquainted with the geography from Bergreen's very good maps.

[Nicole Means · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would have written this review about a month ago, but I carelessly left my first copy of this book on an airplane. (I blame it on my nosy seat neighbor who wanted to talk my ear off during our three hour flight! Couldn't he see I was buried in this enthralling book about Columbus!!) Upon receiving my second copy in the mail, I decided to begin from the beginning. Delaney does an excellent job of capturing the setting and mentality in which Columbus lived. So many authors villainize Columbus, but Delaney offers another viewpoint--there were many characters in Columbus's life, but Columbus somehow is blamed for all the crimes in the New World. Delaney sympathizes with Columbus and his obsession with reclaiming Jerusalem for Christianity. By putting Columbus in the context of the influences of the Catholic church during his day and age, one can more fully understand why he was motivated to colonize the world. Do I agree with everything Columbus did or the methods he used against natives? Absolutely not, but I do think this book is an excellent resource that offers another side of Columbus as both a man and an explorer.

[Addie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really appreciated this book! Delaney approaches everything from an anthropologists point of view, so all truth was examined & utilized. She did an amazing job of separating fact from fiction. She included all the documentation, sources, journals, & historical resources for her studies. Ultimately, I feel Christopher Columbus was badly blamed for the genocides, murders, raiping, enslavements, & pillaging that Bobadilla & Ovando (plus all their Spanish followers as well as other awful men) started & encouraged - against Columbus' orders! This man was a man of God, not plunder. It's sad that so many people today are willing to accept rumor against truth, especially when there is such a tremendous amount of documentation to back up that truth. All it takes is a willing heart & a little study into things like original journals & historical records to find truth. What a tenderhearted, amazing man Columbus was!

[Thomas McCloskey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good read. There were some sections I found problematic but they were wholly overcome by the good writing and well researched work. In fact, if I had one criticism, it was that clearly sections of the book were edited out to make it more available to the general reader. There were hints at more going on that space did not permit a deep dive into. But well worth the read in a world that thinks people thought the earth was flat and Columbus deserves to be sent to the harbor. Very educational.

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent study of Columbus as he really was, in his own time and place, as he understood what he was doing. Too often, people project onto him their modern anachronistic biases. He was a late Medieval Christian who actually believed and took his faith seriously. To see him as he saw himself only highlights what a great man he was.

[Daniel Hoffman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Christopher Columbus was not a modern person. He was thoroughly medieval in his outlook. He was not a bad guy, either, and not greedy. What happened to the natives of the New World in the years following his discoveries happened in spite of him and against his wishes, not because of him. His life in some ways is actually a little tragic. He died without ever realizing what it was he had actually discovered, and the promises that were made to him by Ferdinand and Isabella never really materialized. Still, his accomplishments changed the course of world history more momentously than the actions of almost any other individual person ever.

Lots of people know that what he was trying to do was find a new route to Asia. What fewer know is that the deepest reason he wanted to do this was to ally with “the Great Khan” and acquire enough gold to fund a new crusade for the conquest of Jerusalem, which would help usher in the return of Christ. He was persuaded that he providentially occupied a central role in the biblical drama—re-discovering Eden (which he thought he was on the verge of finding while off the coast of what would be Venezuela), and including the evangelization of the world’s distant islands. His name Christopher (“Christ-bearer”) was no accident. This, by the way, makes the discovery of the Americas belong to the story of the Crusades.

This book is a fascinating account of Columbus and his four voyages that situates him thoroughly in his historical context and focuses on what drove him. Carol Delaney also tries to clear him of the way he is villainized today. Well-written, engaging, and illuminating.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

We can best understand the mind and motivations of epochal historical figures like Columbus only through the lens of their own history, their own times, their own values and beliefs. We need to walk in their shoes or, in this case, travel in their ships, before we come to judgment. Delaney does this for Columbus in this fine book that shows the danger of defining the past and its protagonists through the prism of our contemporary prejudice.

[Nathan Bell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Without knowing what was happening in the world in 1492, we can’t possibly understand Christopher Columbus. Very little of what happened in the western hemisphere happened in a vacuum- most of it had it causes somewhere else. The Crusades had rocked the world, with atrocities committed on all sides. Then in what is now Spain, Ferdinand of Aragon married Isabella of Castile, they started reclaiming the lands which they saw as theirs, and the Spanish Inquisition saw both Muslims and Jews persecuted and then driven from the Iberian Peninsula. In the town of Genoa hundreds of miles east of there, a young man who had no job prospects besides taking to the sea was learning how to explore. He saw many slaves, including Russian and Caucasian slaves from the east coming through his own town. In response to the Spanish Inquisition and the Reconquista, many Muslims retaliated and started the Barbary Slave trade, enslaving white Christians. The Arab and African slave trade had already been going on since the Middle Ages. Across the ocean, in a place that no one knew was there, some Native Americans were enslaving other Native Americans. The world of 1492 was a terrible place of violence and slavery. Some churches were teaching that the end of the world was near, and that Christianity had to reclaim Europe and control the Holy Land- land which was also the most strategic in terms of transportation and trade. Israel was where the known world came together.

In the middle of all this, the young man from Genoa was becoming more and more interested in the Bible. It is possible he read the passages such as I Timothy 1:10 which listed slave traders among those who are unrighteous, but it is more likely he was so obsessed with the passages about the end of the world that he read over other passages. He was what we consider Italian- he wasn’t Spanish. But the Spanish were the only ones really interested in his ideas about exploring west for a passage to Asia, where he might take the gospel to the Grand Khan and get enough gold to finance another crusade which would reclaim the world for Christianity. Its amazing how much people knew, and yet didn’t know. Most Europeans knew the world was round. Some may have known that the Earth rotated around the sun, but much of the church and state at that time supported the teachings of Aristotle as science (Copernicus would come later). Europeans had no idea, however, how far it was across the ocean, that there was another continent there, or that there was another bigger ocean on the other side of that.

But Christopher Columbus was ahead of his time- he was becoming the world’s greatest naval explorer. He had multiple skillsets such as learning new languages, book learning, math, as well as navigation skills. One skillset Columbus clearly did not have though, was administration, or the leadership skills necessary to supervise people and keep them under control. So when he finally convinced Ferdinand and Isabella to support his mission, the people they sent with him had different skillsets. Most of these men had little interest carrying the gospel around the world- they wanted adventure. Like most political leaders, Ferdinand and Isabella wanted other things too- they wanted to build an empire. They had very lax standards of human rights, as the Spanish Inquisition proved, and they wanted to use religion as a means to an end. So when the Italian Columbus sailed west, he took people from Spain with him who just wanted adventure. Many were volunteers, who would only get profit from experience and who would quickly grow tired of Columbus and his lofty ideals. When they reached the New World that they thought was Asia, they were shocked to see people running around naked, including naked women. Most of these new people were very friendly and receptive- even receptive to the gospel. Columbus quickly grew to love these new people, but he had no idea where he was- in fact to the day he died, it is not likely he knew what he had discovered. He saw landscape and beauty beyond his wildest dreams- birds, fish, and animals like nothing in Europe. He saw people who were just as smart as most Europeans, but with different styles of dress and different cultures. He would eventually see Jamaica, where instead of typical bait used by fisherman, the natives would use a fish that clamped onto other bigger fish and didn’t let go- then both fish were reeled in together. Every tribe and culture he met was different, and every experience was different.

The papacy overseas had been bought by Rodrigo Borgia, who issued several papal bulls, one of which allowed for the subjugation of new lands, and included the ability to enslave certain people. It was as if no one, not even the corrupt church leadership, had any qualms about slavery. The world did not have the technology we have- everything was built with human labor. Forced labor to pay for debt or crime was seen as justified- because those types of slavery were as result of something the person had done. Christopher Columbus set sail back to Spain with the belief that the men he left behind would behave themselves and work together for “the greater good.” His orders were to treat the natives well- as had been the orders of Ferdinand and Isabella. But Columbus was very naïve, and he had a habit of giving people nothing more than a slap on the wrist when they misbehaved. After he left, his men raided Native American villages, raped as many women as they could find, and started wars with the Indians which included some acts of genocide. When Columbus got back from Spain, the men he had left were all dead. They had paid for their crimes against humanity with their own blood- but this time, there were over 1200 men who came with Columbus. He was no better a leader then as he had been before, and these new men were horrified when they saw their comrades dead. They had heard rumors of cannibalistic tribes such as the Caribs, and they wanted revenge on whoever was responsible. When Columbus and the Spaniards caught who they saw was responsible for the death of his men, they saw these other Natives as rebellious, violent peoples- who could by law be taken back to Spain as slaves.

As had happened after the first voyage, the men under Columbus rebelled again, committing worse acts against the Native Americans than had been done before. Many of these new men were Hidalgos- they were an upper class of Spaniards, who looked down on the Italian Columbus. They refused to eat the local food, and claimed they were starving. Columbus had written back to the sovereigns in Europe about his men’s behavior, and the sovereigns had ordered these men to obey Columbus and treat the Natives well. But his men wouldn’t listen, they kept abusing the local population of Indians, and would eventually take Columbus back to Spain in chains under mostly false charges. New men started controlling these territories the Spanish had discovered. Many had been appointed; not by Columbus, but by the leadership back in Spain, and there was little to stop them when they pillaged these new found civilizations. They wanted to show other cultures that they were in control, that they were superior, and that no one should dare to question them. The idea of spreading the gospel was obviously Christopher Columbus’s idea, but not theirs. The results of the exploits of these explorers were mixed. Some gold was found, and some friends were made, but there was too much going on to accomplish everything they wanted to accomplish. The biggest accomplishment was that people would find out that the earth was bigger than they once thought.

Was Columbus a good person? -He definitely had good intentions, based on the information he had. He was brilliant, ambitious, and devoutly religious. The best word to describe Christopher Columbus in terms of the atrocities that happened in the New World is: “oblivious.” He knew it was happening, he opposed it, but he was a weak leader, oblivious to the human nature of the men under him. The idea that people will work together for the greater good without any accountability is insanity. And yet, in the aftermath of Christopher Columbus’s voyages, which had good intentions on his part and mixed intentions on the part of others, the gospel would eventually be taken to parts of the world that had never been reached with the gospel before. The goal of reaching every tribe, tongue, and nation was actually closer to becoming a reality, because some good men would come overseas with the explorers that came after Christopher Columbus. Some priests and missionaries who came over were good people, who actually cared about the salvation of humanity. At the end of his life, people would realize that Columbus had discovered a new world and other explorers from other nations would come and open up the westwrn hemisphere,

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the past, American children were taught to venerate Christopher Columbus as a great explorer. In the present, they are taught to abhor him as a genocidal conqueror. Putting aside the culture war and trying to apprehend the man from a lay historical perspective, which story is closer to the truth?

Both those who remain unshakeable in their faith in Columbus and those who get their history solely from Howard Zinn are likely to remain unmoved by any new arguments, or even any new evidence. For the rest of us, author Carol Delaney's "Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem" is probably one of the most important, well-researched, and well-written pieces of popular history you are ever likely to encounter.

That might sound a touch hyperbolic at first blush, but Dr. Delaney's book is a real rara avis of scholarship that synthesizes primary sources (including Christopher Columbus's own diary entries) and the sizeable mountain of already existing scholarship to create an account of a man and his time that reads like a novel.

Christopher Columbus, a deeply religious Catholic with a millenarianist cast of mind, set out for what he thought was the Land of the Great Khan in the hopes of gathering enough resources and support from the Khanate to retake the lands seized by Muslim invaders who had already managed to conquer large swaths of Europe. His skills as a navigator were unparalleled (even today his feats at dead reckoning cannot be replicated on the open water), and his journals (and the contemporary accounts of shipmates) reveal him to have been compassionate to the natives he encountered. Alas, he was not half as good an administrator as navigator, and the men he appointed to guard the settlement of Hispaniola plotted against him and slaughtered the native peoples shamelessly.

Columbus has borne the brunt of the blame for the genocidal crimes of other men for centuries. He was undermined by his own men (who at one point shackled him and paraded him around in manacles to humiliate him). The royals who conferred titles and riches on him withdrew both as the caprice struck them, and now his statues are suffering a protracted campaign of iconoclasm that might harbor very dark days ahead for what's left of Western Civilization.

This is an important, masterful book, for anyone who is curious about the past as it was lived, experienced, and witnessed, and not as it is being rewritten (or erased). Highest recommendation.

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked the context Delaney paints around Columbus -- which is what makes this book better than some other Columbus books I have read. As a cultural anthropologist, she writes of his experiences while describing and explaining the Medieval mindset that informed and motivated his thinking.

Not wholly a Columbus apologist, Delaney connects the dots among various events such as the Crusades, the Reconquista and Spanish Inquisition, and the desperate rivalries among the Sovereigns for advantages in trade and for Papal favor -- essentially setting up Columbus for his opportunity in the spotlight. It's much more complicated than him seeking fortune and fame; just as significant was his quest to help realize Biblical prophecy.

She writes of how he was convinced the apocalypse was nearing, and in fact had narrowed it down to within about 150 years (about 1650 CE/AD), and that he believed he had a key role in helping the Christian church regain control of Jerusalem. There is much in his diaries and letters to support this notion, and only by accumulating enough gold and wealth (and an alliance with the Grand Khan) would he be able to fulfill his destiny in such a passion play. It reminds me all too much of Dick Cheney.

It's pretty crazy, but it explains a lot. She goes on to draw some comparisons to modern religious fundamentalists and believers in the apocalypse from all three sides of the Jerusalem triangle, underscoring that these are deeply held beliefs by LOTS of folks around the world ... Osama bin Laden and Tim LaHaye come to mind, reminding us that this is not just a quaint idea that folks believed hundreds of years ago.

I finished it on Christmas night. Yikes.

[Christian Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very interesting book. In college, when learning about Columbus, it was taught in a way that you would think Columbus was one of the conquistadors. Each year on Columbus Day there are cries from all over the internet saying Columbus was a terrible person and terrible things happened because of his actions. This book gave me a lot of context about Columbus and the initial colonization of the Americas. One important thing is that the world Columbus lived in was very very different than our world today and judging him based on our contemporary world view is not a very fair. Columbus was also surrounded by a lot of hooligans, murderers, and vicious criminals for his entire career. The crimes committed by these people are often placed directly on Columbus's shoulders.

A quote from the end of the book: The "presentist" perspective that dominates the contemporary view, even among some academics, holds him responsible for consequences he did not intend, expect, or endorse. Judging Columbus from a contemporary perspective rather than from the values and practices of his own time misjudges his motivations and his accomplishment.

I would highly recommend this book for any interested on gaining a new perspective on this important historical figure.

[Joe Archino · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an incredibly important book for our times. Modern attacks against Christopher Columbus have clouded his legacy so much that the general public has a portrait of the man that is contrary to who he really was, what his motivations were, and how he conducted himself. Delaney’s incredible research is presented very well and weaves in extensive citations from Columbus’s journals and other invaluable primary documents from his times. Reading Columbus’s own words and being presented with the proper context behind his adventures leaves the reader with a fair and accurate portrait of one of the most important figures in human history.

[University of Chicago Magazine]

Carol Delaney, AM'78, PhD'84
Author

From our pages (Nov–Dec/11): "Arguing against contemporary anticolonialist perspectives that Christopher Columbus was a greedy imperialist and glory hunter, Stanford University professor emerita Carol Delaney writes that he was in fact trying to help fund a religious crusade to take Jerusalem from the Muslims. Placing Columbus in the political and religious context of the 15th century, Delaney says he believed that he was destined to participate in this fight."

[Josh Hevert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fascinating portrait of Columbus’ religious views in places, but ultimately an apologia for Columbus that loses its focus. Delaney sees what she wants to see and doesn’t take into consideration other damning evidence of Columbus’ misdeeds. Her treatment of the Taino people is particularly abominable as she excuses Columbus’ genocide and enslavement of that people.

Two stars for the bibliography and contextualization of Columbus’ apocalyptic views.

[Ryan H · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this book.
"A people's history" was important for its time. Many histories were poorly written as the showed only the highlights of american history. Zinn commits the same sin in his book in reverse showcasing only the lowlights. Delaney's work is brilliantly researched, well sourced, and to the point. It is a balanced account of Columbus the man, explorer, and Christian.

[Philip Lavery · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a good book on Columbus it wasn’t too long. The author gives people a good view what life was like and how people viewed the world during that time period. This book definitely peaked my interest into reading more about Columbus and other explorers.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marvellous account of Columbus and his sincere Christian motivations. A great read that sympathetic and clear.

[Carl Virgin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A shockingly necessary read for every Amercian living

[Bobbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it! So informative and well researched.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Writing a refreshingly positive take on Christopher Columbus, the author shatters misconceptions about the discoverer of America (or, perhaps aptly, the Americas) being a brutal conquistador and provides a new perspective backed by solid research and literary sources. Not only does she single-handedly debunk the myth, and quite frankly, the wholly unfair blame and treatment, that Columbus was this massive, evil-soaked, oppressor of natives, she also keenly redirects the reader to the true culprits, many of the subject's compatriots who committed blatant misdeeds in his absence and without his approval.

The central thesis of Delaney, the author, is that Columbus, hence the title of the title of the book, was convinced the world was ending from a religious standpoint (he was not alone in this thinking), and the journey "east" to find the Grand Khan to open up a trading route similar to what his predecessor, Marco Polo did, would enrich Spain and afford the Catholic conquest of Jerusalem and the expulsion of the Ottoman Muslims. Here, a temple could be built to usher in the end of times. However, as the reader discovers with each turn of the page, that plan never comes to fruition. Columbus gets bogged down in his new discoveries and settlements and constant traveling that it begins to take its toll on his health.

The book is filled with daring, adventure, peril, sheer curiosity, and wide-eyed amazement of the new lands, terrain, people, customs, etc. Not only does the reader see what the explorers see through the eyes of the author, but also the inner turmoils of the sovereigns (the adversarial King Ferdinand but cordial Queen Isabella) and the expenses of the voyages and granting privileges and titles for discovering the new lands. Coupled with in-fighting among his crew and settlers, the book never gets dull or boring, but rather is constantly exciting and piques the interest.

The last chapter shrewdly albeit briefly mentions the explorer, Americus Vespucci, the namesake of the Western continents, and correctly remarks on the shameless rejection of Columbus being celebrated and lauded as the true discoverer of the New World for Vespucci. It was quite educating to know about this tidbit. I suspect many others are likely unaware of the story, too.

Finally, in the afterwords, the author rightly reminds the reader that Columbus was none of the evil things he has been mislabeled with and that the was a product of his time. To look at the past under the microscope of the comfort contemporary 20th and 21st Century society is not only unfair but sheer folly. Columbus was actually the opposite of what his detractors claim: kind, benevolent, and not interested in enslaving the natives. The author points out, however, that the cannibalistic Carib Indians, were enslaved and sent back to Spain according to papal policy, not because of Columbus.

One minor criticism of the book, however, is also in the afterwords where the author expands on Columbus's view of the Apocalypse but ties it in the modern world with what an elected official said about the theory of climate change. The injection of modern politics can be a touchy subject and off-putting when the focus is on a historical book such as this one. Also, she rather vaguely, and oddly, attempts, in a thinly-veiled way, to discredit the Rapture that Evangelical Christians believe in according to Biblical scripture. I didn't see the relevance of these two points being necessary for inclusion in this otherwise fantastic book.

Overall, the book is a very solid read and enlightening to hear a fresh, new perspective on the oft-vilified Christopher Columbus, especially as we rapidly approach Columbus Day. I highly recommend it to others to learn and better understand about the real man, his story, and his intentions, and not what the misinformed masses unjustifiably say in order to besmirch him and his legacy.

[William T · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pub. 2011 - This is an excellent and unique Columbus biography, taking his religious fervor into full account and using it to contextualize both the man and the world from which he came.
Many biographers are at best dismissive or at worst cynical about Columbus’ devotion to Catholicism, and as such they paint a distorted, modern, secular view of a man and a continental culture (Europe) that is inextricable from religion.
From the crusades and the “loss” of Jerusalem, to the Reconquista and the expulsion of the Jews, Catholicism served as a both a structural power and a personal commitment that informed every aspect of how one perceived the world. Delaney’s course is unique in that instead of focusing solely on Columbus’ navigational abilities, brevity, or administrative inadequacies in the New World, she couches all of these aspects within the firm context of a devoutly religious man with deep convictions both about the present world and the world to come.
Given this perspective, Columbus’ rationale for decisions and actions become much more comprehensible, as removing the man from the faith decontextualizes him to the point of irrationality, ignorance, or insanity.
The final chapter is lofty and out of place - she tries to make a direct connection between the apocalyptic sensibilities of the 15th century with the 20th, and while I understand her rationale, it just feels forced. The final chapter devolves into a sentimental plea to avoid nuclear Armageddon on the shoulders of religion. A perfectly sensible plea, but I found it to be beyond the scope of the book. Instead of ending on a fine summary of an otherwise well researched, well written, unique, and frankly important assessment of Columbus and his motives, she derails this fine achievement with an unnecessary and rushed conclusion. Given this, I removed one star from the rating.
Save the final chapter, I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking to learn more about Columbus, contextualized in his proper place as a devout Catholic explorer in the 15th century, who was a deeply consequential historical figure, but neither the hero nor the villain some have painted him out to be.

[Jarrett Vandiver · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Columbus has been dead for more than five hundred years, but he does not rest in peace.”

This was a fun read which I am convinced will give anyone who reads it a transformed and new vision of who Columbus really was. Delaney proves that Columbus did not sail for gold or glory but for Jerusalem. His mission was to locate the Grand Khan (Genghis Khan’s descendant) so that Christian forces could unite with those in Asia to push back against Islamic forces which threatened to conquer the entire world, and which held the Middle Eastern church hostage for many years and does so today. Delaney also shows that popular repudiations of Columbus as being “racist” or “guilty of genocide” are at best unwarranted and are at worst ignorant calumny. Delaney concludes her book in this way:

“Heated debates about his legacy that began to coalesce around the Quincentennial commemorating his landfall continue to the present, and every year protests against him mar a holiday weekend in October. Like a fallen angel who was proposed for canonization in the nineteenth century, he has crashed to earth in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Where once he was celebrated for the discovery of a new world, now he is blamed for all the calamities that befell that world. The “presentist” perspective that dominates the contemporary view, even among some academics, holds him responsible for consequences he did not intend, expect, or endorse. Judging Columbus from a contemporary perspective rather than from the values and practices of his own time misjudges his motivations and his accomplishment.”

[Leanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Delaney’s book veers shockingly toward becoming a Columbus apologist. It is one thing to set the record straight but quite another to hold him up as being far more compassionate and skilled than he actually was. I realize that Columbus has become a kind of catch-all for all that is evil —and the fact is, he probably was not as much at fault as the governors appointed to replace him. And then of course the Spanish that came after him engaged at what can probably be called genocide. Also not using any non-English language sources that I could see for the book was also a bit of a problem, I thought—since she was offering up such a totally new interpretation of the explorer. And indeed one was needed! Just in my lifetime, Columbus went from being the “modern man” who “knew the earth was not flat” and set out to discover a new continent (wrong, wrong and wrong) to becoming the very personification of imperialism and greed (closer maybe but not quite?).

Delaney’s book is compared in reviews with Nigal Cliff’s new one on de Gama—highly recommended! Like Cliff’s book, Delaney dives deep into the religious and cultural context of the day to paint Columbus as a fervent religious believer who "set out west to go east" to Japan, in order to get the gold so as to fund a new crusade to free the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. I think, unlike in de Gama’s case perhaps, this argument by Delaney is clearly backed up by his diaries and letters. He says it himself that this was his main objective (to free the Church in Jerusalem) and what he felt to be his destiny.

She also delves into a text written by Columbus that not a lot of books for the popular reader have looked at, namely the Libro de las profecias (book of prophesies), Firmly believing the Apocalypse was at hand, Columbus saw himself as being part of the big scheme of things. Nothing could happen unless the Holy Land was back in Christians hands, this does seem to be his top most rationale for the voyages. The book is fascinating and she is a wonderful writer. This is my second reading. And I loved it even more this time.

[Andrew C · Rating 3 out of 5]

Carol Delaney does a great job of explaining and highlighting the ground truth of Columbus’ four voyages to Hispaniola. In particular weaving epigraph style quotations within the prose was charming and merged the commentary with historical accounts from these voyages in a novel way.

Despite the positive bias of the author I still didn’t buy the accounts of Columbus recording undue criticism. He brought Spain to the innocent people of America and left them without any sense on how to govern. He made petty and often miserly requests to his monarchs. Everywhere his ships landed war and atrocities followed.

What I thought was great about this book was how it really expanded the blame for all this on others as well; the Spanish crown, Catholic doctrine (which to put in fair historic context; religious doctrine at this time was the oxygen society breathed), hidalgo culture, Bobadilla and Ovanda. Columbus gets a lot of flak for the behaviour of these other bad actors.

Ultimately a great read with excellent sourcing of documentation that tries a bit too hard to cast Columbus as a victim, rather than a passive participant in a horrible genocide.

[Christie Wessels · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a bit of a slog, but I'm glad I finished. I have read quite a bit about Columbus lately, so a lot of the details about his journeys were not new. However, this book added a lot from his writings and historical documents about his motivation for his venture which was new to me. He was a devout man who wanted to find a new path to Asia so he could convert the Grand Khan, who had asked for a Christian priest to come teach him about Christ, and while he was there gather enough gold to fund a final crusade to take back Jerusalem from the infidels. The book makes the point that the atrocities currently attributed to Columbus were in reality committed by some of the men who came along with him and against his direct orders, and by other new governors sent by Spain. Columbus continually requested the crown to send along priests and missionaries who would learn the language and spread Christianity peacefully to the natives, of whom he had a high opinion.
Enough of Columbus for a while! He was brave and talented, but flawed like all of us, and I think I have read enough to satisfy me for a very long time.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and well written exploration of Columbus' discoveries, his beliefs and actions, and the pressures that he faced putting together multiple voyages to "the Indies." Most interesting is the author's claim, pretty well backed up, that Columbus' journey west to the East was motivated by his desire to fund the reconquest of Jerusalem. I have never heard that. The author humanizes Columbus as a good man of his time, who tried to protect the natives he met in the Carribean, and quotes him as saying some of the tribes he met were some of the gentlest, kindest people he ever know, almost "natural Chrisians." The Spanish, especially the lower nobility, treated the natives horribly and Columbus hated it.

The end of the book is odd. In the last short chapter the author suddenly ventures into the history of Christianity (bad), the Reformation (good), modern American politics (bad), etc., and decides that the kind of apocalyptic thinking that drove Columbus is alive today and very dangerous. It's really a strange thing to tack on to a history of medieval exploration. Otherwise, recommend.

[Patrick Daly · Rating 5 out of 5]

It gets a 4.5/5 from me due to the lack of detail surrounding Francisco De Babadilla and Bernal Diaz del Castillo's 'accusations' which are mentioned and refuted in this book, but you'll have to find another book or go to the published source for more on the topic because the author doesn't dive into it in detail at all. Otherwise this is the perfect book for an abridged Christopher Columbus biography in my opinion. The primary sources are referenced often enough to give context, but it's written with a narrative style to not feel like a textbook. Her thesis is very compelling and well-supported. Overall I highly recommend this book if you're looking for a Columbus biography of reasonable length.