| ||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
'1492 is a compendium of delights ... This book is a cultural thesaurus, a treasury of detail, and a fine example of how convincing history can still be written.' -- Times
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Review
'Filled with marvels and sensations rich in description and replete with anecdote ... A compendium of delights' Peter Ackroyd, The Times 'Fernandez-Armesto's chapters on the western Mediterranean are models of how to write popular history: accessible, provocative and full of telling detail' **** Mail on Sunday 'Fernandez-Armesto's rich vision of the 1490s is unlike any other world historians have given us. He has performed an amazing feat of portraying the world as one place before it had yet become one place ... This is popular history at its best: grounded in research, insightfully critical, and written with grace' Literary Review 'Engrossing' Daily Telegraph
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The year 1492 is best known for Columbus' discovery of America (though he thought he had got to China); also for the conquest of Granada by the "Catholic Monarchs", which put an end to the Moorish civilisation in Spain (which had been rather tolerant), replacing it with a very intolerant one (NB the Inquisition and the eviction of the Jews). Even if you think you already know about these events, Fernandez-Armesto is well worth reading.
His discussion of the earlier Spanish colonisation of the Canary Islands, though it comes in a separate chapter, provides an interesting preamble to the subsequent overthrow of the Inca and Aztec civilisations.
At least equally important, and much less well-known, were events in the Far East and around the Indian Ocean, which the book discusses at some length. Around this time, China withdrew from imperial ambitions, while Japan "crumbled into ineffectiveness", leaving that very important area open to subsequent European trading and colonisation.
There is also a chapter about events in Africa in and around 1492, which shaped the religious map of the continent, Islam dominating across the Sahara, in the Sahel and along the Indian Ocean coast, with Christianity preponderant elsewhere.
The author's breadth of knowledge is impressive - he has a Spanish father, an English mother and lives in the USA, which may contribute to this. Though I found myself skipping some parts - such as the dynastic vagaries of Imperial China - I found his book both readable and instructive.
His discussion of the earlier Spanish colonisation of the Canary Islands, though it comes in a separate chapter, provides an interesting preamble to the subsequent overthrow of the Inca and Aztec civilisations.
At least equally important, and much less well-known, were events in the Far East and around the Indian Ocean, which the book discusses at some length. Around this time, China withdrew from imperial ambitions, while Japan "crumbled into ineffectiveness", leaving that very important area open to subsequent European trading and colonisation.
There is also a chapter about events in Africa in and around 1492, which shaped the religious map of the continent, Islam dominating across the Sahara, in the Sahel and along the Indian Ocean coast, with Christianity preponderant elsewhere.
The author's breadth of knowledge is impressive - he has a Spanish father, an English mother and lives in the USA, which may contribute to this. Though I found myself skipping some parts - such as the dynastic vagaries of Imperial China - I found his book both readable and instructive.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I was gripped by 1492: The Year Our World Began , by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto. This is the second book I have read by the renowed historian - the last was the incredible Civilisations.
1492 argues that the process of forging the new modern world begun in 1492! Fernandez-Armesto traces key elements of the modern world back to events of that year. He takes the reader on a journey around the globe, drawing the together the threads that began to bind the planet. The tour begins in Granada, where the last Islamic kingdom in Europe collapsed, then moves to Timbuku, where a new Muslim empire triumphed. With Portuguese explorers, we visit the court of the first Christian king in the Congo. He then traces the frozen frontiers of the dynamic, bloody Russia of Ivan the Great, and explores the mystical poets in Asia. The book is perhaps not on the level of "Civilisations", but it is well worth the read. It will appeal mostly to those who love world, maritime or explorations history. At 346 pages, you will want to allow plenty of reading time.
Memorable Quote : "History has no course. It thrashes and staggers, swivels and twists, but never ends one way for long". [pg 311]
1492 argues that the process of forging the new modern world begun in 1492! Fernandez-Armesto traces key elements of the modern world back to events of that year. He takes the reader on a journey around the globe, drawing the together the threads that began to bind the planet. The tour begins in Granada, where the last Islamic kingdom in Europe collapsed, then moves to Timbuku, where a new Muslim empire triumphed. With Portuguese explorers, we visit the court of the first Christian king in the Congo. He then traces the frozen frontiers of the dynamic, bloody Russia of Ivan the Great, and explores the mystical poets in Asia. The book is perhaps not on the level of "Civilisations", but it is well worth the read. It will appeal mostly to those who love world, maritime or explorations history. At 346 pages, you will want to allow plenty of reading time.
Memorable Quote : "History has no course. It thrashes and staggers, swivels and twists, but never ends one way for long". [pg 311]
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is an engrossing history, which takes a quite unusual path in following the events around the world at approximately the same time - of course 1492. As Fernandez- Armesto makes clear this was a time of significant events which helped to form the world we have become. The conquest of Granada by Spain, which essentially brought an end to Islam as a ruling power in Europe, the sailing of Columbus on his first voyage which led to European involvement in the Americas, the expulsion of Jewish people from Spain which led to increased conversions to Christianity, and the benefits those conversions brought to Christian commerce and learning, and the effects of the withdrawal of China from exploration and foreign influence which left the door open for others to exploit are all explained here along with events in Africa, the Canary islands, and in the rapidly forming and expanding Russia under Ivan the Great.
This is a wide sweep of history which helps set events in the context what was happening across the world. At times it can be a little heavy going as it can build on history which may be little known by the general reader ( well at least by me) , but it is an enjoyable and very informative read.
Recommended
This is a wide sweep of history which helps set events in the context what was happening across the world. At times it can be a little heavy going as it can build on history which may be little known by the general reader ( well at least by me) , but it is an enjoyable and very informative read.
Recommended
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Engrossing and Illuminating
An engrossing, highly readable survey of the state of the world in 1492, when Columbus's (or his overlooked lookout's) discovery of the Americas dramatically changed the global... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Owlette2008
Patchy and Lifeless
I found this book pretty lifeless and patchy and its title "1492 The Year the World Began" meaningless. Read more
Published 8 months ago by John Fitzpatrick
The World On The Cusp Of Change? Perhaps
So, according to the author, 1492 is the year that the world changed. Given Columbus' first voyage to the New World, it's easy to see how this can be the case. Read more
Published 24 months ago by Feanor
An excellent and funny History book
This book gives a global approach in History. It is not eurocentric and shows how was the world in that time. Read more
Published 24 months ago by F. Javier Guijarro
A new world order discovered
The author has written an overview of the dominant civilizations in the world in the era of the year 1492, which was made famous by Columbus's discovery of America. Read more
Published on 21 Feb 2010 by Patrick Mullane
Listmania!
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
