Christopher Columbus: A Latter-Day Saint Perspective Rating :
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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Accurate, well-researched
By The Write Craft
The purpose of this book, as stated in the introduction, is to look at what modern day prophets have said about Christopher Columbus.
I am impressed that of all twenty books on the history of Columbus I have read, this is the only
one that doesn't pass judgment on the choices Columbus made.
Instead, the author points out and quotes people who state that we must consider his time and place before we are too quick
to judge what happened after he discovered the passage to the Americas.
The way this book depicts the first voyage Columbus made to the Americas is exactly the same as the other histories,
only with the added insight on specific events where miracles took place (as recorded in Columbus' journals). One such event was
the discovery of the fastest route to America and the struggle Columbus had to convince some of his passengers that their superstitions
were false until proven true. It was a miracle that mutiny did not occur before Columbus landed
on islands on the southernmost coast of South America. It was a miracle that Columbus changed the ship's course
due south just before it would have broken on invisible coral reefs under the water. It was a miracle that the wind kept blowing
them west nearly the entire journey.
The discussion on slavery and dogs is nearly left out all together, which I appreciated after having read books describing
such things in vivid detail. The purpose of the book, though, was not to give every detail of Columbus' journeyings, only what significance
those journeys have for us today.
At the end of the book, I found myself thinking about how careful we ought to be about choosing scapegoats
for modern, historic, and ancient history. Often, there are so many conditions tied to circumstances out of one's control that the accomplishment of
any of the evils so often accredited to people like Christopher Columbus, Hitler, Government,
and other people we don't know the true and accurate histories of
could not be possible for one person alone to accomplish.
Columbus was one such figure in the sense that it was the Spanish conquistadors who carried out orders
from the Catholic Church that destroyed and enslaved most of the people in the South American islands long after Columbus' death
as we can read in anthropological journals of the destruction and descration of sacred
Mayan, Inca, and Azetc sites and writings in areas like Cuba, Mexico, etc.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.Arnold Garrs book was fantastic
By Debbie Peters
I really enjoyed this book. I have now read it twice. It was full of information and the way it was written made it very easy to read and understand. I would recommend it and have even given it to people as a gift. Great book.
Product Description
While many books have been written about the life of Christopher Columbus and his New World discoveries, this one has a different thrust- that Columbus was not just a skilled, courageous sailor but was also a chosen instrument in the hands of God.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #296347 in Books
- Published on: 1992-07
- Original language:English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 103 pages
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