The Tropics of Empire: Why Columbus Sailed South to the Indies (Transformations: Studies in the History of Science and Technology)
Publisher: The MIT Press; MIT Press
Published: June 30, 2008
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 584
ISBN-13: 9780262232647
Subjects: History; History - General History; History: World; Latin America; Expeditions & Discoveries; Historical Geography; Latin America - South America; History / World; Latin America - General; World - General
Description: "Everyone knows that in 1492 Christopher Columbus sailed west across the Atlantic, seeking a new route to the East. Few note, however, that Columbus's intention was also to sail south, to the tropics. In The Tropics of Empire, Nicolas Wey Gomez rewrites the geographical history of the discovery of the Americas, casting it as part of Europe's reawakening to the natural and human resources of the South. Wey Gomez shows that Columbus shared in a scientific and technical tradition that linked terrestrial latitude to the nature of places, and that he drew a highly consequential distinction between the higher, cooler latitudes of Mediterranean Europe and the globe's lower, hotter latitudes. The legacy of Columbus's assumptions, Wey Gomez contends, ranges from colonialism and slavery in the early Caribbean to the present divide between the industrialized North and the developing South."--Jacket.