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A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World

Book by Tony Horwitz · 2 quotes · America, Christopher Columbus, Colonialism

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A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World Quotes

“The past was a consumable, subject to the national preference for familiar products. And history, in America, is a dish best served plain. The first course could include a dollop of Italian in 1492, but not Spanish spice or French sauce or too much Indian corn. Nothing too filling or fancy ahead of the turkey and pumpkin pie, just the way Grandma used to cook it.”

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“A bookish man, he read widely, but rarely in search of new knowledge. Instead, he sought confirmation of his preexisting fantasy about an orient that lay almost on Europe’s doorstep. This dream drove him across the ocean sea, where he saw and heard things already in his own head; sirens, cannibals, subjects of the great Kahn, even an island off Hispaniola inhabited by Amazons. Other men of his day had clearer vision. “The hidden half of the globe is brought to light,” Peter Martyris, an Italian historian in the Spanish court wrote upon Columbus’ return from his first voyage in 1493. The next year, Martyris became the first European to refer to the Indies as “Ab orbe novo.” The New World. Yet Columbus never grasped the immensity of what he’d done. The more he saw, the less he learned. Mysticism, and dreams of the Orient kept overwhelming the evidence of his own senses.”

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Book:A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World
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