Laurence BergreenRezensionen

It is almost unimaginable-what these men braved and experienced, but-thanks to a painstaking reliance on primary sources-the author brings it all vividly too life
really interesting

Even thoiugh this is the period of British history with which I am most familiar, I still learned a great deal from this well written book. It works as a biography for both Drake and Elizabeth. I was especiallly engrossed with Drake's circumnavigation, whihc I had previously known little about, other than it happened and he explored the whole from woulod later become the California, Oregon and Washington coast. I also did not know the full extent of his success as a pirate on this voyage with many millions in today's dollars liberated from the Spanish. The court intrigue is as interesting as court intrigue gets for me, but I would have enjoyed more detail on the techniques Drake used so successfully to subdue all those ships without any serious difficulties. The Spanish Armada sections were also enlightening. I had forgotten the devastation wrought by the weather on the Spanish ships and the superior range of English cannon. Of course, everyone knew about the speed difference.

A good recapitulation, exposition, and explanation of Marco Polo, the Pax Mongolica, and Polo's book. Interesting, resting on good scholarship, nice pictures, and more accessible than Rustichello's/Polo's late medieval prose.½

This book is a unique blend of historical fact and gripping narration. One would learn of the age of exploration in general, so much about the Magellan-Elcano trip, and the perspectives and ideas of that era. Antonio Pigafetta's chronicles are referenced at many places in detail and add another layer of information to the narrative. The stories, the opinions of 16th century explorers, the tragedies and the lessons learnt are all things one would come to appreciate on reading. You'd also come across the history of discovery of so many places, of Tierra Del Fuego, of Guam, of the straits of Magellan, even of the first observations recorded by Europeans of the dwarf Magellanic galaxies! The path taken by the Armada of Molucca will pretty much be hardcoded into your memory once you get through this book.

Appallingly badly written. The reading by the author himself not much better. Staggering that this came recommended by Kevin Kelly and has been so successful. Not recommended.

From Ferdinand Magellan and Sir Francis Drake to lesser-known scientific explorers and even an unknown mariner, a batch of new nonfiction works share previously overlooked stories set during the age of discovery. These titles expand our thinking about the people and missions that jumpstarted maritime travel and commerce.

In Search of a Kingdom: Francis Drake, Elizabeth I, and the Perilous Birth of the British Empire
Laurence Bergreen, Mar 2021, Custom House, an imprint of Harper Collins
Themes: World history, Maritime history, British empire, Age of Discovery

IN SEARCH OF A KINGDOM is an engaging nonfiction narrative exploring Francis Drake, his major voyages of exploration, and his relationship with Elizabeth I.
Take-aways: Educators will find the relationships among the key players along with the specifics of Drake’s expeditions to be helpful in understanding the bigger picture of piracy, enslaved people, diplomacy, and the quest for fame and riches during this period.

Many details of Drakes life and the Spanish Armada I I hadn’t heard before.
It was interesting to learn that Elizabeth I had small pox in the early years of her reign and that is why she wore heavy make up.
Provocative gossip about the licentiousness of her court. New insights for me.
Francis Drake has long been a heroic figure for me. I found it interesting to learn more of his background and exploits.
I hadn’t realized the central contribution his piracy made to the financial solvency of the Elizabethan court.

Somewhat long, boring, but still interesting look at the life of Francis Drake and his voyages.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book about Sir Francis Drake’s life and the birth of the British Empire. We follow him on his journey to be the first person to circumnavigate the earth. Originally a slaver he becomes a fierce opponent to slavery and is usually fair with those he defeated (unless they are shooting poison darts at him). Not a bad fellow in the end. I also learned more about John Dee, the original “007”! Highly recommended.½

Every epic fiction story pales in comparison with the true story of 5 little spanish ships voyaging through unknown waters.

Heritage Studies Book 4

**Audiobook Version**

I listened to Laurence Bergreen's publication in my car as I drove to and from work every day. This was my first time ever listening to an audiobook, and I realize now that writing a review for one is a bit difficult since I couldn't take notes while driving! I will do my best to remember what I listened to.

I was reading The Conquest of Paradise by Kirkpatrick Sale alongside Bergreen's book so I could whet my appetite of Columbus history. The two books are drastically different. I believe Sale took a more scholarly approach; he warns the reader several times that because of possible exaggeration or lies from the sources used, especially the ones from Columbus, his son, and De las Casas, that we must stay skeptical.

Bergreen took the entertainment route and seemed to embellish and adorn many of the accounts from Columbus' journal and states every word written as fact. I quickly realized that The Four Voyages read like an action-adventure novel. I don't recall him ever stating that some of the stories being told from the sailors or the others that were on the voyages might contain aggrandizement.

However, I did enjoy the fact that Bergreen delves a lot deeper into the details of the Four Voyages than Sale does. He dives into Columbus' journal about his travels to the islands, and also reads parts where Columbus did some anthropological studies on the Taino Indians, commenting on their dances, their diets, how they looked like, and details on their ceremonies. He spoke briefly about the instruments used by the natives, which I thought was pretty cool.

If this is your first book on Columbus and the infamous voyages, I would caution the reader to be skeptical and take a critical approach to the subject matter. We must remember that these events took place 500 years ago, and many of the original documents barely survived. If I recall, De Las Casas used a COPY of Columbus' journal to write his accounts of the voyages. The original was lost to history. Another source commonly used is the accounts written by Christopher's son Bartolomeo, and that was written many years AFTER Christopher's death, not to mention that he tried his best paint his father in a favorable light.

I think I'm going to try to read the physical copy at some point. The narrator for the audiobook enjoyed garnishing and decorating some of the passages, which I didn't particularly enjoy. Overall, I liked the book and recommend giving it a read if you are interested on the subject!

Excellently written and thoroughly enjoyable read. A true adventure of historically important discovery from the age of exploration.

In Search of a Kingdom is a great introduction, and adventure story, of a defining figure of the 16th century. There are so many English explorers and pirates - Thomas Cavendish, Walter Raleigh, William Dampier - it's easy to become confused (for this American), but Drake was the first to become famous, he would inspire and influence all one who came after. He is probably most famous as the first English captain to sail around the world and return alive - Ferdinand Magellan was killed on his journey and his crew returned barely alive, whereas Drake came home with a healthy crew and ship in polished condition. He was also something of a colorful personality and natural leader who even his enemies admired; he sometimes captured a ship and set the captives free with a bit of the loot as a gift; he usually dined on ship with musicians serenading his meal. Still, despite being so privileged to have seen the world, it's geography, native cultures, flora and fauna, he returned home largely unchanged as a person. His influence as such is a secondary consequence of his actions - contrast with William Dampier a century later, whose writings and outlook changed the way the world sees.

Bergreen's theme, as the sub-title, is that Drake was the beginning of the British Empire. This idea is not original, nor dwelled upon, but it is valid. England under Elizabeth was an indebted secondary kingdom without much of a navy in a world dominated by wealthy and powerful Spain. But the Spanish Empire had an Achilles heel - it needed to ship treasure, which made it vulnerable to attack. Drake was not the first of Elizabeth's "Sea Dogs" (privateers) but was the most successful, bringing home enough loot to pay off England's debt and more besides. This wild success spawned more piracy, and solidified the idea that England could be a maritime power with colonies of its own. It's an old theme that when glorified as the Victorians did is tone deaf these days, but important to understand the context of how colonialism began - inter-state competition over global resources and culture. Bergreen does not glorify, maybe to a fault one has to bring a sense of awe and wonder, but he is a reliable narrator of events.

Magellan's voyage in 1519 was not long after the brutal mass eviction of Jews from Spain in 1492 and in the long build up to the terrible removal of 350,000 Muslims between 1609 to 1614. So this book, based on first hand accounts, is particularly interesting as the seamen meet south americans and then many different island communities after crossing the Pacific Ocean. But while the first hand accounts were enough to keep me interested as far as the spice islands, I was then frustrated by the lack of other points of view - there were indigenous peoples, Muslim communities, chinese influenced civilisation - I wanted to know far more about what the Spanish ships encountered and lost interest in the mariners themselves, and what happened to them.

This book was amazingly good! I had never given much thought to Magellan circumnavigating the globe before but this book promised to be a gripping page turner according to the reviews. It was just that.

For a nonfiction book, this flowed well and kept up a good pace. I learned and relearned about the Age of Discovery and about life on a ship in the 16th century. It wasn't pleasant. It seemed if the storms didn't get you, the scurvy would.

Everything is presented here: the good, the bad, and the ugly. The self-righteousness of people claiming other people's countries with the idea it was their due is the sad, unsettling, and very real undertone of this book. These men discover new lands, new wildlife, new cultures. They also burn down villages, kill native peoples, baptize them in the name of Christianity, and trade trinkets for treasure. They often consider mutiny against their Captain General but are usually punished according to the ways of the Spanish Inquisition. Read: Torture.

Knowing next to nothing about this journey, it was definitely a page turner for me. I had no idea what happened when they got to the Phillippines, for instance. I appreciate the work the author did in his research and also the epilogue he added. I love epilogues as I like that sense of closure.

Now I want more! There's no end of exploration novels, I expect. This was certainly a good one.

Well documented, comprehensive narrative of Magellan's circumnavigation. Begreen's use of specific details from logs of the voyage give a rare authenticity.

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This book was interesting. As I got into this audiobook, I began to want to read the original - the one "written" by Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa. That urge didn't last too long. The epilog section of this make it clear to me that this book is a much better choice. The original was written in bad French, no original manuscript survives, and the order of events is sometimes confused. There are 150 manuscripts that survive - no two are alike. Therefore, I am pleased to have "read" this one.

Marco Polo describes many unusual sexual practices. One that amazed me was that the people didn't resent the huge numbers of young ladies being shuttled off to the capital for the pleasure of Kublai Kahn. As I recall, it was 100 per day that were gathered in from the empire to the capital. The ones that didn't make it through the selection process were parceled out to his minions.

He describes the practice of marrying dead children. That implies that they believed in life after death, and that they believed that ordinances need to be done here on Earth for the marriage to be valid in the heavens. The marriage of dead children included all the rites, formality, and expense of a usual marriage, even including the paying of a dowery.

This book gave me a much greater appreciation for several things:
- The great diversity of various cultures. Some cultures were exceedingly hospitably, and others quite predatory.
- The great danger of travel during most of the world's history. (That persists in some parts of the world even today).
- The appetites of human nature for things such as sexual gratification, power, and money are 'never satisfied.' They were just as avaricious in the 13th century as any century before or since. Kublai Kahn was at least twice duped by conniving ministers. The first time lasted for 30 years. After that, he caught on much quicker. In his later years, Kublai Kahn had the largest empire on earth, but still tried to extend it to places so remote that they had never heard of him.
- Marco Polo's tales were not accecpted as true in his hometown of Venice. ("And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house." Matthew 13:57)
- In the 20th century comparisons were (finally) done to check the validity of Marco Polo's reports and found them to be largely accurate. Why did it take so long to get around to it?
- The author of this book, Laurence Bergreen, often attributed the fictional parts to Rustichello's literary style.

I was surprised that in his old age, Marco Polo became litigious.

Delightful, and it made me want to learn more. I recommend this edition as one that weaves a coherent narrative with additional material beyond that found in Travels.

Marco Polo (1254 - 1324) has become the embodiment of East-West relations with China. To any foreigner with ties to China, Polo looms large. Both in Venice, where Polo was born and where he died, and Beijing, where he lived for some time, there are historical relics, in Venice his home known as 'il corte del milione' and the Marco Polo bridge in the western suburbs of Beijing (Lugouqiao).

Marco Polo was a contemporary of Dante Alighieri, and lived nearly a hundred years before Geoffrey Chaucer. Few people read works from the Middle Ages, as both the language and mind set of people of those times are difficult to comprehend. Polo's description of the world, or his travels have often been characterized as a phantasy, fiction rather than fact. However, an increasing amount of scholarship, including contemporary Persian and Chinese sources indicate that the Polos did actually reside in the Chinese empire, suggesting that Polo's travelogue is largely true.

Laurence Bergreen's book is not an edition of Marco Polo's Travels. Marco Polo. From Venice to Xanadu is more of a concordant history book. As the author explains in various places, Polo's book seems to be based on a loose-leaved manuscript that has fallen down the stairs and been recollected: there is no logical, historical progress to the narrative. Marco Polo claims to have been an emissary to Kublai Kahn, the then-ruler of China. The travels suggest that he made several prolonged stays in Chinese cities other than Beijing, but it isn't clear whether he would have returned to the capital after each mission or reported to the Kahn while travelling. In this sense, Bergreen's assumption that Polo's stay in China can be charted as a linear progress rather than a back and forth to the capital may constitute a violation of the historical accuracy of Polo's work. However, it does considerably clarify Polo's trajectory and create a clear and logical framework for the reader.

The opening chapters of Bergreen's book shine with a brilliant description of the Venetian Republic in its full splendour. In 14 chapters, Bergreen describes all we know about Marco Polo, all the people who surrounded him, both literally and historically, and all facts of history and geography that are relevant to the various stages of Polo's travels from Venice to China, and on the way back via India, returning to Venice. Bergreen's book bring together an impressive amount of scholarship, and he does not fail to point out contention and disagreement. Nonetheless, Bergreen is a strong proponent of the essential veracity of Polo's travelogue, and in Marco Polo. From Venice to Xanadu tries to tell us what Polo's cannot make sufficiently clear. In that sense, Bergreen's book is a great tribute to Marco Polo.

The final chapters of Marco Polo. From Venice to Xanadu are dedicated to the reception of Marco Polo's Travels, including Coleridge's famous lines. In these chapters Bergreen points out the problematic textual history of Polo's travels, authorship, language and manuscript versions. In fact, the end notes of Bergreen's book make a very interesting reading, and can be read as a succinct academic summary of the book. However, it is obvious that Bergreen is no sinologist of medievalist, and his book which is largely free from references and footnotes is intended for general readership.

Marco Polo. From Venice to Xanadu is a great book that (re-) tells a fascinating story. It is a pity that Chinese scholars are mainly wary of any research beyond anything purely Chinese. In fact, the legacy of Genghis Kahn as a conquerer of China is not without controversy in the People's Republic, while Chinese scholars do not really see Marco Polo as a truly researchable object within the body of Chinese history or Chinese studies. However, a thorough study of Chinese sources might reveal and make a major contribution to the understanding and significance of Marco Polo as a link between the western world and China.

Magellan's voyage in 1519 was not long after the brutal mass eviction of Jews from Spain in 1492 and in the long build up to the terrible removal of 350,000 Muslims between 1609 to 1614. So this book, based on first hand accounts, is particularly interesting as the seamen meet south americans and then many different island communities after crossing the Pacific Ocean. But while the first hand accounts were enough to keep me interested as far as the spice islands, I was then frustrated by the lack of other points of view - there were indigenous peoples, Muslim communities, chinese influenced civilisation - I wanted to know far more about what the Spanish ships encountered and lost interest in the mariners themselves, and what happened to them.

Everything I knew about Magellan I learned in 6th or 7th grade so it clearly was time for an update, but it took a desire to learn more about the 16th century exploration and colonisation of Asia by the European nations to introduce me to some of the most fascinating and entertaining books I've read in recent years. This is one of them.

Bergreen's history is one of those fun reads that includes everything from the origin of words ("Arabs...formulated elixirs and syrups derived from spices, including julab, from which the word "julep" derived its very name; and how Portugal's famous Guadalqivir River derived its name from the Arabic original Wadi al-Kabir, meaning "great river") to discovering that Magellan was once a page in the Lisbon royal court, together with his brother (Diogo) before seeking patronage for his planned expedition to the Indies. Three times he was turned down by the Portuguese king before he emigrated to Spain, home of Magellan's boyhood hero, Christopher Columbus, where he finally found his desired patron and hoped he would succeed where Columbus didn't. We learn that hammocks weren't yet used on board ships during Magellan's lifetime; sailors would just "appropriate a plank" or sprawl wherever there was space. That cats were only newly domesticated in Europe in the 16th century and unfortunately none had been brought onboard to keep the rat population at bay. If you're interested in obscure historical facts, you'll love Over the Edge of the World.

The story of that 1519 expedition is, of course, the main story, but it is enriched by many side stories, such as that of Faleiro, who was a brilliant cosmographer and Magellan's planned companion, but who also suffered from bipolar disorder "or some other form of extreme depression" and in the end, never went to sea. And one of the few survivors of the voyage, the Basque shipmaster Elcano, who was one of the initial mutineers.

Easy to read, fun, and a page-turner. If only secondary school history teachers would add such titles to their reading lists.

Since there are 2,000 reviews of this book already, there's no need to summarise the book but I'll just add my 'thumbs up' to a very entertaining and informative work. The combination of long quotes from Marco Polo accompanied by explanations and annotations by author Bergreen worked very well for me--I will confess that I found reading the Travels of Marco Polo in the original tedious and at times very slow going, but Bergreen has selected the most interesting sections without omitting the heart of the original. AND although I've been reading Asian history for decades, I learned a couple of new things that I hadn't run across before (for example, that the origin of the word 'caravan' is Persian karvan, which means 'company'...and this although I've personally travelled the Kashgar-Xi'an section across the Taklamakan Desert several times.)

Everyone should read the tales of Marco Polo; I would heartily recommend this book to anyone age 15 and up. It's going on my shopping list for nieces & nephews....

Geez it has taken me about fifteen thousand years to get through this thing.

Casanova was an interesting dude who did a lot of very interesting and sometimes brilliant things. He also seemed to have an uncanny ability to seduce women and make them believe he would marry them, but then he'd run away. He also sexually assaulted half of them in the first place.

And then there was the BLATANT GANG RAPE.

I can't get over that one.

No matter what else Casanova did in his life, no matter how great and amazing and intelligent he was...he does not deserve the title of "seduction Genius," and I'm still pretty upset that the author portrayed him in such a positive light, almost glossing over the explicit and unavoidable gang rape.

It's still a very thorough biography that includes plenty of context and information on everything going on in the world during Casanova's lifetime.

As others have said this is primarily a page-turning adventure on the high seas featuring endurance, fear, starvation, mutiny, scurvy, greed, death, torture etc. All for a few barrels of cloves. The backdrop is the 'Age of Discovery' and the rivalry between the then two naval superpowers of Spain and Portugal, both bidding for control over the lucrative spice economy. This was an unfamiliar period of history for me so I found the book enlightening in that respect. We are reminded that at the start of the voyage there was still no consensus that the earth was round, maps and charts were next to useless and superstitions regarding mythical sea creatures and cannibals abounded. The author successfully draws characters for the main players from the historical sources available. Pigafetta, the main chronicler of the voyage perhaps emerging as something of the true hero, certainly more engaging and sympathetic than Magellan. But the story is the thing here and it is quite staggering and more compelling to know that it was all true.

Al Capone is one of my favorite topics of interest. The book is lengthy about 700 pages but engrossing. I'm not sure all the facts are accurate or fact at all. There's no real proof Capone had a long time history with cocaine use but the author states it is based on one medical examination that discovered he had a perforated septum. The hole in his nose could've come from his syphilis. A lot of the book read mores like opinion still a decent read.