The Great Age of Discovery, Volume 1

Columbus, Magellan, and the Early Explorations

By: Paul Herrmann

Narrated by: Charlton Griffin

Length: 12 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

In the space of 400 years, Western man methodically set out to explore and map the entire earth. During some of the most dangerous expeditions ever mounted, an extraordinary group of determined men forced passages through vast oceans, dark jungles, and withering deserts. Never has their like been seen since. What drove these soldiers, sailors, and civilians to leave the comforts of civilized life and face the horrors of shipwreck, starvation, cannibals, and disease?

The primary motivations were fame, fortune, and adventure...sometimes all three. But with some of these explorers there was also a sense of duty, the idea that it was their destiny to discover new lands, new trading routes, to further the prominence of their king and country, and to illuminate the dark corners of the planet to solve the geological riddles that had puzzled humanity for eons.

In Paul Herrmann's great synthesis of anthropology, archaeology, medicine, and wonderful narrative history, we discover the story behind the great expeditions. We learn how they were organized and carried out, what happened when Europeans confronted strange and often savage societies, and what happened to these explorers upon their return to Europe. We also learn what impact their discoveries had on primitive cultures and European society. But this history is also much more. The result is an unbelievable picture of mankind swept up in the dramatic passage from enforced isolation to a dynamic worldwide trading network.

Volume 1 follows the voyages of Columbus, da Gama, Magellan, Cortes, Pizarro, and others as the Western hemisphere is discovered and mapped. After Magellan's voyage, the world of trade takes a revolutionary turn and the fortunes of Europe and the Mediterranean are changed forever.

Did you enjoy Volume 1 of The Great Age of Discovery? Then be sure to listen to the conclusion in Volume 2

©2004 Audio Connoisseur

Great Age of Discovery

A real snoozer. The author fails to bring any excitment to what should have been an exciting time. There are countless reference to minor characters.

Outdated

I'm a real fan of the European explorers and have read various books on the subject. This book has its good parts, and its problems. When the author sticks to Columbus and Magellan, the narration is relatively informative, although books on those specific explorers will have much more detail. The second half of the book loses the listener. When the author spends time on Cortez and the Aztecs or Pizzaro and the Incas, the book becomes more a history of those indian cultures than a narrative of the explorations conducted by the Europeans. I guess I was expecting an explorer/adventure book and got a dry description of ancient american indian society.

There are also some interesting aspects to this book which I was not expecting. The author is apparently German because he continually tries to inject Germans into the explorer club. I don't doubt that Germans participated and bravely explored in their own right, but they pop up unexpectedly and seem out of place.

Also, the author spends a great deal of time pushing the "Viking" theory of first discovery. And not only of Newfoundland, but as far South as Mexico. I think this is because throughout the book the author gives the feeling that "white men" were specially endowed with the knowledge and courage to explore the world . . . and the "Viking" theory supports this position. For example, the very last sentence of the book mentions the superiority of the white man in becoming the master of the world! Wow, the more I think about it, this book is really outdated.

Ugh! Back At High School

This reading was so dry I thought I was back in my high school social studies class. While I knew the story of the explorers from school I was hoping that this book would expand my understanding of the times. Sadly, this was not so. All I learned was that pepper became a commodity and a lot of people got syphilis.

A white supremist take on history

While the narrator does an excellent job and the writer takes a set of facts and weaves them into a compelling story the story and facts are definitely dated. No mention of how the European diseases weakened and often wiped out the indigenous peoples. There is a constant search for previous white skinned blue eyed explorers who the author believes gave the indigenous their knowledge. The author often repeats the unsupported belief that the explorers were considered god like because of their skin color.

All in all a well done but very dated telling of history.

The Great Age of Discovery, Volume 1: Columbus,

Please dont waste your money on this book like I did. There are lot better adventure books out there. In fact on a scale of adventure books its the worst one in my library of over 200 books.

Eurocentric

I almost quit this book near the beginning of its coverage of Cortez. The author's Eurocentric slant was probably more acceptable at the time this book was written, but it chafes in this day and age. I think the Aztecs, and the Toltecs and Maya before them, were perfectly capable of developing their culture without the help of off-course Europeans. Hermann also seems to put the "credit" for the defeat of the Aztecs on their belief that the Conquistadors were, or came from, Quetzacoatl. The Azetecs soon discovered that these interlopers were men with weapons, period. More important in the destruction of the Aztec empire was the impact of European diseases, spreading through Mesoamerica from the time of Columbus. This receives nary a mention.

I wouldn't recommend buying the audiofiles. The narrator has a rather pompous tone that gets quite tiresome. You might do better to read the book, skipping the lecture parts, but I wouldn't recommend even that unless you can find the book in a library AND you're interested in historiography. It's not a bad example of a too common midcentury genre of history.