Amerigo Vespucci: Explorer of South America and the West Indies (Spotlight on Explorers and Colonization)

Amerigo Vespucci, the presumed namesake of the continents of North America and South America, is a controversial figure in the history of European exploration. The number of voyages he took to the New World is in dispute, but among his accomplishments, he found a rough method of calculating longitude, made notes on the indigenous peoples he encountered, and published theories proving that Columbus had not landed in India. This volume separates the fact from fiction, the man from the myth, and sets about to responsibly examine the remaining open questions at the heart of this history of New World exploration.