Columbus and the Crisis of the West

Columbus and the Crisis of the West

Robert Royal
$20.95
Publication Date: September 11th, 2020
Publisher:
Sophia Institute Press
ISBN:
9781644134054
Pages:
336

Description

After decades of politically charged controversy, the reputation and standing of Christopher Columbus lies battered beneath mountains of misjudgments and distortions. The surge of historical revisionism now ravaging the legendary explorer insists that his daring adventures brought only tragic consequences: disease, death, subjugation of native peoples, incitement of the African slave trade, destruction of the environment, and other horrors.

But is this a legitimate assessment of Europe's inevitable western expansion?

In Columbus and the Crisis of the West, Dr. Robert Royal carefully examines the mind and motives of Christopher Columbus, distinguishing him as the greatest explorer of his age, whose courage and vision extended Christian Europe and inspired the American spirit.

Yet you won't find here a full-throated defense of Christopher Columbus. Rather, Dr. Royal examines what actually happened in the decades following 1492, when two widely divergent cultures met and mingled. Refusing to ignore or underplay the tragedies of America's origins, Royal masterfully places these events in historical context, protecting them from the contemporary biases that are moving forward at ramming speed to crush fragile truths.

In these pages you'll explore Columbus's spirituality and the apocalyptic vision that guided him, as well as the disparate ways in which Puritans and Catholics viewed and approached the indigenous peoples. You'll also discover what life was really like for them, the truth about Indian environmentalism, the essence of the "noble savage," and the soundness of the claim that the native peoples were innocents living in harmony with nature.

Here is the book that cuts through the fashionable pieties of our time by boldly refuting the most popular indictments of Columbus and early America. Finally, a serious classical scholar who confronts with power the crusading revisionist historians who are leveraging the Native American conquest in an effort to defile, dishonor, and ultimately upend Western civilization.

About the Author

Robert Royal is the founder and president of the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington, D.C., and editor-in-chief of The Catholic Thing (www.thecatholicthing.org), an online publication that appears daily and is translated into five foreign languages. He writes and speaks on questions of ethics, culture, religion, and politics. He has appeared on various television and radio stations around the United States, including frequent appearances on EWTN as a special commentator on Church matters, and has lectured in fifteen foreign countries. His most recent book is A Deeper Vision: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the 20th Century. Other books include Dante Alighieri, The Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century: A Comprehensive Global History, The Pope's Army, and The God That Did Not Fail. Royal holds a B.A. and an M.A. from Brown University and a Ph.D. in comparative literature from the Catholic University of America and has received fellowships to study in Italy from the Renaissance Society of America and as a Fulbright scholar.