Additional information
by Christopher Columbus (Author)
The journal or log of Christopher Columbus, dating from August 1492 to March 1493, offers an account of his journey to the New World 500 years ago. Biographical, nautical and navigational information also is included in this commemorative volume. The log of Christopher Columbus is an invaluable asset to those who would know what the explorer was thinking even as he was attempting discovery. His efforts to identify which trees were valuable was clearly influenced by his needs to justify his sovereigns' investment in what, by Spanish standards, was an extremely expensive endeavor. Though his drive, determination, and brilliance caused plenty of human grief to others, by the standards of his own time, Columbus was a hero, and his actions did jump start the European civilizations of the Americas.
Author Biography
Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) was a navigator, colonizer, and explorer from Genoa, Italy, whose voyages across the Atlantic Ocean led to general European awareness of the American continents in the Western Hemisphere. With his four voyages of exploration and several attempts at establishing a settlement on the island of Hispaniola, all funded by Isabella I of Castile, he initiated the process of Spanish colonization which foreshadowed general European colonization of the "New World". Although not the first to reach the Americas from Europe-he was preceded by at least one other group, the Norse, led by Leif Ericson, who built a temporary settlement 500 years earlier at L'Anse aux Meadows-Columbus initiated widespread contact between Europeans and indigenous Americans. The term "pre-Columbian" is usually used to refer to the peoples and cultures of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus and his European successors.
