Columbus: The Four Voyages, 1492-1504

He knew little of celestial navigation and nothing of the Pacific Ocean. He went looking for China and thought he found India. He was a self-promoting opportunist who made his great discovery without ever acknowledging it for what it was. Yet for all his flaws, Christopher Columbus was a masterful seaman who, for better or worse, plotted a new course for the world's future. In the first full biography of Columbus in over sixty years, prizewinning author Laurence Bergreen takes the full measure of the explorer's controversial career, spinning an epic tale to match the events of an epic life.