Books by Felipe Fernández-Armesto
Felipe Fernández-Armesto is William P. Reynolds Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame.
“I think he’s absolutely brilliant and very witty, and he has written dozens of brilliantly original books, including a series of books about Columbus. This is the best of those books. What really makes this biography stand out is that he questions all of the old assumptions and myths about Columbus. When he finds in previous biographies a statement that Columbus had a love affair with Queen Isabel, say, or that she pawned her jewels to pay for his voyage, or Columbus was secretly Jewish, or Columbus thought the world was round when nobody else did—the list goes on and on—he does not unquestioningly accept a single one. That’s really important, because there are other writers of good, very readable Columbus biographies by good historians who do.” Read more...
The best books on Christopher Columbus
Matthew Restall, Historian
Straits: Beyond the Myth of Magellan
by Felipe Fernández-Armesto
Straits: Beyond the Myth of Magellan is historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto's takedown of the Portuguese explorer whose disastrous expedition was the first to circumnavigate the globe.
The Oxford Illustrated History of the World
by Felipe Fernández-Armesto
"Our aim is to see the world whole with objectivity hard to attain for humans trapped in our own history.” Thus the authors of The Oxford Illustrated History of the World explain the aim of the book, which includes contributions from a group of eminent historians and covers 200,000 years or, to put it another way, the whole of human history.
The Oxford Illustrated History of the World is an ambitious book, and not a light read: it's for history fans who really want to know what happened down the ages. As one would expect, not all the authors agree and there is room for different interpretations. That said, the wonderful illustrations, for example of the 35,000-year old mammoth ivory carving of a woman's body, mean its appeal is far greater than just academic. Read this and you can tell your friends that you know the whole of human history, which hopefully will impress them.
Felipe Fernández-Armesto spoke to Five Books about the best books on global history.
Interviews with Felipe Fernández-Armesto
The best books on Global History, recommended by Felipe Fernández-Armesto
Embracing global history allows us to see humans with a much clearer perspective. Historian Felipe Fernández-Armesto introduces us to some of the trailblazing books in the field, starting in the 2nd century BCE.
Interviews where books by Felipe Fernández-Armesto were recommended
-
1
Columbus: And the Conquest of the Impossible
by Felipe Fernández-Armesto -
2
The Worlds of Christopher Columbus
by Carla Rahn Phillips & William D. Phillips Jr. -
3
Toward the Setting Sun: Columbus, Cabot, Vespucci, and the Race for America
by David Boyle -
4
The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books: Young Columbus and the Quest for a Universal Library
by Edward Wilson-Lee -
5
Sinking Columbus: Contested History, Cultural Politics, and Mythmaking during the Quincenterary
by Stephen J. Summerhill
The best books on Christopher Columbus, recommended by Matthew Restall
The best books on Christopher Columbus, recommended by Matthew Restall
Heroic explorer or harbinger of doom? The impact of Christopher Columbus has become the focus of intense debate—in both academia and the arena of popular opinion—in recent years. We asked noted scholar of colonial Latin American history Matthew Restall to recommend five of the best books that explore Columbus’s life and legacy.
