Description

In 1519, Ferdinand Magellan set sail from Seville, Spain in search of valuable spices; he brought along a fleet of five ships and more than two hundred men. When the expedition returned home three years later, the fleet was reduced to one ship and only eighteen men; Magellan himself had been killed during the journey. However, the group had found the spices it had sought — and a way to circumnavigate the globe.

Laurence Bergreen brings this historic journey to life in Over the Edge of the World; it is at once a travelogue of a remarkable journey into unknown territory, an examination of the European worldview as it moved from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, and the chronicle of a desperate grab for commercial and political power. Magellan’s voyage was filled with violence, death and danger, but it ultimately changed the way explorers would navigate the oceans, along with many long-held assumptions about the world.

Laurence Bergreen is the author of many books, including Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant Life, Capone: The Man and the Era, As Thousands Cheer: The Life of Irving Berlin, and Voyage to Mars: NASA’s Search for Life Beyond Earth. A graduate of Harvard University, he lives in New York City.

“It’s all here in wondrous detail ... A first-rate historical page turner.” — New York Times Book Review