This is not the longest or the most "academic" book on European history I've read, but it's one of my favorites.Toby Lester has a real gift for making history interesting and accessible for the layperson. He covers a wide range of subjects from the lives of Marco Polo and Columbus to the medieval perception of the world, to economics and cartography, yet he remains focused and engaging. Lester goes beyond simply relating events from the past -- he weaves diverse topics together into a single fascinating narrative. A very interesting book that I read as an audiobook while working out at the gym. It provided good background about the Age of Discovery. I learned a lot about the characters from high school Western History class. It reinforces the fact that the driving force for this period was a lust for gold and other riches. Not much ever changes. I did not realize that all educated people in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries were well aware that the world was round. They just could not estimate how large the globe really was. An audiobook is the way to read it. But I took out the book from the library to review the charts in the book.
If you love maps, you'll love this non-fiction sleuth about the origins of a famous map...
—mag
Excellent book! Very good at making important connections in my knowledge base.
—Siara
This comes out in paperback on July 6th!
—docjean
Utterly captivating! Read this book!
—Katswink
