vivi wrote: ↑Sat Sep 26, 2020 11:49 pm
It is! It's a reprint of a book written when Europeans first explored Virginia. I'm a little obsessed with the 1490-1600 era when Europeans re-discovered the New World. Columbus, Cabot, Cortez, Magellan.....such a fascinating era of history.
It is fascinating indeed and I´ve read many books about this era and topic too... both more scientific subject books and more novel like ones.
Concerning the latter there is a great book by the rather famous Austrian Novelist Stefan Zweig (early 20th century) about Magellan - actually a novel, but very close to the historical facts. Don´t know though if the English translation can capture the poetic language he uses.
And the whole Cortez and conquering the Actec empire thing is fascinating anyway... and sad too, if thinking about what a in many ways highly developed and fascinating culture was almost totally annihilated and so many aspects of it will never be known to us. I sometimes think about how things would have turned out if the British and not the Spaniards would have come into contact with the Aztecs first: Not that the Brits did treat Native cultures "nicely" either, but at the time they tended not to totally extinguish everything that was not (catholic) Christian, and so perhaps more temples, artefacts, scripts and general knowledge of the Actec culture would have survived.
To get back on topic a bit

: Manix 2 on a book about the Aztecs and their conquering by the Spaniards seen though the eyes of a Native American. Not the best book in the world, but still a nice read and gives one another perspective.

Top three going by pocket-time: Endura 4 in VG 10/Micarta-scales; Stretch 1 in VG 10; Endura 4 in HAP 40