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Book
Review |
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Fritze, Ronald H. New Worlds: The Great Voyages of Discovery 1400-1600
(Sutton Publishing Limited, 2002). 285 pp, $36.95 (cloth).
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Ronald Fritze has written an engaging synthesis
of literature produced during the 500th anniversary celebrations
of Christopher Columbus, John Cabot, and Vasco da Gama's famous voyages.
By his own admission, the work is inherently Eurocentric in that it focuses
on European "accomplishments" and does not attempt to present African, Asian,
or Native American perspectives. One might chide him by saying that we cannot
possibly understand the European expansion without carefully considering
the manner in which non-European peoples alternatively constrained and facilitated
that expansion. This may be true, but, as he indicates, such a story would
have resulted in a much larger—and much different—book. Even
so, while Fritze's Eurocentric perspective does not prevent non-Europeans
from coming into the story, the reader nevertheless is left with the feeling
that story is incomplete. |
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New Worlds begins with two chapters
that lay the historical foundation for European expansion. Chapter one surveys
the European worldview before the age of exploration, including the myth
of three continents and the idea that there were monstrous races lurking
on the margins of the European geographical knowledge. The chapter is a
fascinating exploration of the European mind as well as the ethnographic
and geographical models that informed European perceptions and influenced
their behavior, especially when they came face to face with a reality that
did not fit their own cosmological preconceptions. |
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Chapter two places European expansion squarely
in the context of the centuries-old trading contact with the much more extensive
and much richer African and Asian worlds. Chapter three demonstrates that
the early European expansion into the Atlantic was really an extension of
these trading activities. Most of the chapter logically covers the Portuguese
expansion into Africa and the Atlantic islands. In chapter four, Fritze's
balanced and succinct synthesis of Columbus' progression towards his first
voyage could hardly be improved upon. Likewise, his summary of why the Portuguese
ruler D. João II delayed following up on Vasco da Gama's first successful
voyage is interesting and informative. |
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Chapter five explores how Europeans went about
mapping the coastlines of the Americas, and how they finally understood
that a large landmass stood in the way of their efforts to reach Asia by
water. The last chapter follows Portuguese attempts to wrest control of
the Indian Ocean trade from Muslim merchants. It then traces the Spanish
conquest of both the Aztec and the Incan empires before detailing Spanish
explorations into the interior of North America. The conclusion quite nicely
summarizes the impact of European expansion for the world. |
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Fritze excels in not only synthesizing the
existing literature on European exploration, but also in creating an interesting
narrative that helps sweep away many of the myths that still cloud contemporary
perceptions of the first century of European expansion. One particular strength
is that Fritze resists romanticizing European explorations and conquests.
The Spaniards and Portuguese explorers and conquistadors are depicted as
the ruthless self-serving men they often were. Fritze is also at pains to
show that the conquests of Mexico and Peru were not the glorious victories
of superior Europeans over inferior natives they are often purported to
be. For example, he discusses how the Inca system collapsed more from its
own weight and internal divisions than from anything Pizzaro did. |
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That said, Fritze's discussion of Cortés
and Mexico would have benefited from a closer perusal of the works of Inga
Clendinnen and Ross Hassig. He cites Hassig, but not Clendinnen. Clendinnen
has a brilliant essay showing how and why Mexica-Spanish miscommunication
resulted in the destruction of Tenochtitlan.1
Hassig approaches the conquest from the Indian perspective and convincingly
argues that it was more an internal Native American war than a Spanish conquest.2 |
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James Powers' work on the municipal militia
in Spanish history might also have helped Fritze see Cortés in the
context of the Iberian municipal militia tradition that Cortés so
cleverly manipulated to justify and legitimize his otherwise illegal activities.3
This tradition also formed the context in which Cortés and his men
understood their own actions, and helps explain why men like Bernal Dias
so roundly criticized Cortés for his mishandling of the division
of the booty of conquest. |
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Despite a compelling narrative, there are
a few editorial infelicities here and there. On page 95 padrão
is misspelled two out of three times with different spellings for each.
Professor Fritze also failed to include the formal D. in front of the names
of the Portuguese kings, which stands for Dom and is required in both English
and Portuguese before the names of Portuguese royalty. |
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New Worlds is richly illustrated, with
useful maps and both color and black and white illustrations. The images
and maps presented in chapter one are extremely helpful in illustrating
the European worldview. Unfortunately, many of the illustrations depict
Native Americans in stereotypical terms without any attempt to identify
or dispel those stereotypes. Many illustrations are also from nineteenth
century publications, which lends an anachronistic air to the illustrations. |
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New Worlds represents a clear, insightful,
and engaging synthesis of the last two decades of scholarship on the first
century of European expansion. Whether we view that expansion from the perspective
of the Europeans or from the perspective of those they encountered, it remains
arguably one of the most significant episodes in the history of the world
to date. Indeed, its consequences are still being felt. For that reason
alone such a synthesis is both timely and well conceived. This is especially
true given the current debates over globalization. I thoroughly enjoyed
the book and New Worlds will find its place on my bookshelf and in
my classrooms. |
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| James E. Wadsworth
Stonehill College |
1 Inga Clendinnen,
" 'Fierce and Unnatural Cruelty': Cortés and the Conquest of
Mexico," Stephen Greenblatt, ed., New World Encounters (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1993), 12-47.
2 Ross Hassig,
Mexico and the Spanish Conquest (New York: Pearson Education,
1995).
3 James F.
Powers, A Society Organized for War: The Iberian Municipal Militias
in the Central Middle Ages, 1000-1284 (Berkeley: Univ. of California
Press, 1988).
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