Straits: Beyond the Myth of Magellan (Hardback) - Felipe Fernandez-Armesto (University of Notre Dame, USA)

For centuries, Ferdinand Magellan has been celebrated as a hero: a noble adventurer who circumnavigated the globe in an extraordinary feat of human bravery; a paragon of daring and chivalry. Now, historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto draws on extensive and meticulous research to conduct a dazzling investigation into Magellan's life, his character and his ill-fated voyage. He reveals that Magellan did not attempt - much less accomplish - a journey around the globe, and that in his own lifetime, the explorer was abhorred as a traitor, reviled as a tyrant and dismissed as a failure. Fernandez-Armesto probes the passions and tensions that drove Magellan to adventure and drew him to disaster: the pride that became arrogance, audacity that became recklessness, determination that became ruthlessness, romanticism that became irresponsibility, and superficial piety that became, in adversity, irrational exaltation. And as the real Magellan emerges, so too do his true ambitions, focused less on circumnavigating the world or cornering the global spice market than on exploiting Filipino gold. Offering up a stranger, darker and even more compelling narrative than the fictional version that has been glorified for half a millennium, Straits untangles the myths that made Magellan a hero.

About the Author

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto's awards for work in maritime and imperial history include the World History Association Book Prize, Spain's Premio Nacional de Investigacion Geogafica, the Caird Medal and the John Carter Brown Gold Medal. He is a Vice-president of the Hakluyt Society. In 2016 the King of Spain recognised his services to education and the arts with the award of the Gran Cruz de la Orden de Alfonso el Sabio. His previous publications include the critically acclaimed Out of Our Minds, A Foot in the River, 1492, Millennium, Pathfinders and Food: A History. He occupies the William P. Reynolds Chair at the University of Notre Dame, where he is a professor of history and, concurrently, of classics and of the history and philosophy of science.