Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe in History is Not Boring

Sep 25, 2020 Rindis rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, kindle

This book gets a few ratings of 'biography', and... yes, actually, this is a fairly decent biography of Fernão de Magalhães, or Ferdinand Magellan, as it goes into his background and life as a whole. However, it is primarily about the Armada de Molucca and the circumnavigation of the world.

As a biography, it is more of a tragedy, as Magellan, a determined and ambitious man, is repeatedly snubbed by the King of Portugal, and Magellan goes to Spain with his plan to go west to get to the East. Howe This book gets a few ratings of 'biography', and... yes, actually, this is a fairly decent biography of Fernão de Magalhães, or Ferdinand Magellan, as it goes into his background and life as a whole. However, it is primarily about the Armada de Molucca and the circumnavigation of the world.

As a biography, it is more of a tragedy, as Magellan, a determined and ambitious man, is repeatedly snubbed by the King of Portugal, and Magellan goes to Spain with his plan to go west to get to the East. However, he is never truly trusted by the powers that be, and his authority over his five-ship fleet critically undermined before it even leaves port. Worse, Magellan himself doesn't seem to have been a great leader, never developing a large degree of trust with most of his subordinates.

But he can rise to the occasion in a crisis. After losing two ships to a mutiny, with the other two standing off neutral, he manages to reassert authority over four ships with just the resources of the crew on his flagship. But outside of crisis, his performance can be erratic, and this shows in the very inconsistent dealings with the natives of the Philippines, where he puts himself into a hopeless situation and gets killed.

The coverage of the rest of the voyage is no less detailed than that of the first half, as Bergreen has collated as many primary sources as he could to assemble the full story of the first journey around the world. This mostly means two surviving accounts written during the voyage, but there are of course other accounts from crew members written afterward. Some of these have never appeared in English, and Bergreen introduces them for the first time in English here. He also occasionally makes use of later sources for descriptions of what an area they went through was like.

Despite this attention to detail, this is still a 'popular' account of the expedition, and extremely readable. Sadly, as such, it is deficient in maps. In fact, there's no maps showing the details of his route at all. There is a good section of plates, but in the Kindle edition this is unhelpfully stuck behind the index, and I had no idea it existed until I started flipping through the end to check for maps. ...more

5 likes · Like · see review

Jun 25, 2007 Grumpus rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history

This has to be one of my favorite books of all-time!

What a harrowing but exciting time to be alive and see the parts of the world never before seen by Europeans. I have to agree with the other reviewers in simply saying this book was fun.

I'm glad I get to relive their adventures vicariously rather than being there myself. ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Jun 17, 2011 Matt rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

A really great book, the writing just flows, is not tedious but also not banal. It reads like a novel but doesn't stray from facts and detail.

The author builds on the man and the myth of Magellan through his descriptions and reflections of the difficulties of the journey and of Magellan's leadership and resourcefulness.

I completely accepted the man and myth of Magellan. When you think about how difficult the voyage was, poor diet, poor ships, threat of mutiny, lack of knowledge, backwards middle A really great book, the writing just flows, is not tedious but also not banal. It reads like a novel but doesn't stray from facts and detail.

The author builds on the man and the myth of Magellan through his descriptions and reflections of the difficulties of the journey and of Magellan's leadership and resourcefulness.

I completely accepted the man and myth of Magellan. When you think about how difficult the voyage was, poor diet, poor ships, threat of mutiny, lack of knowledge, backwards middle-age science and pseudo science, it was a very monumental achievement.

The Author does not avoid the issue of Magellan's cruelty to mutineers and some of the native peoples that he met. And he does not avoid criticizing Magellan when he has lapses in judgment.

The diversions are interesting, reflecting on how the Chinese (Zhang He) had a great navy, the voyage of the Beagle, even influence on Shakespeare.

Also, for me, it was an interesting mental exercise for me to think about life in 1520. Europe must have been a squalid environment, so much so that sailors were motivated to risk so much on the high seas in questionable sailing vessels, terrible conditions and with very minimal knowledge of the world. Often knowledge was indiscernible form superstition. Then again people were tougher and more self sufficient then. And it was the beginning of the Age of Discovery.

This book shows the fractured atmosphere in Europe, and control that the banks and church had over the kingdoms. I am a little astonished that Europe was able to rise to prominence as it did. It seemed that most of the cultures that the Armada visited along the way were in many ways socially and technologically equal of the Spanish. In the case of the Chinese, more advanced than Europe.

The sources are interesting. The author obviously looked at other voyage logs to gain insight into what a typical voyage would be like. I thought it was interesting to consider that many of the sources essentially led back to four crew members who documented the voyage, Pigafetta and Albo. The author developed an obvious appreciation for Pigafetta's work.
...more

Like · see review

Feb 13, 2022 Lianna rated it really liked it

Shelves: history

Fascinating. I loved the anecdote about the time Christopher Columbus punched that accountant in the face.

It's crazy how ~250 people set out with Magellan and maybe 22 actually circumnavigated the globe and made it back.

And they did it all for cloves! Maybe the worst of the spices, after bay leaves. Cloves! ...more

Like · see review

Oct 29, 2021 Christine rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Man oh man, what a crazy journey, both in real life and as a reader/listener. It's hard to imagine what it was like back then, when no one actually knew how big the world was, or the Pacific Ocean, and when nations thought they could just decide who owned what parts of the world by drawing an imaginary line in an ocean they knew nothing about. Fascinating, intense, a little terrifying, a mite infuriating too, this is a great book for history buffs. ...more

Like · see review