I’ve written before about my “special” bookshelf, which holds those books that have made me want to read them over and again. I restrict that shelf to 20 volumes. To add a new book I must remove one of the others. Yes, that can be troubling.
My new addition is Samuel Eliot Morison’s “The Great Explorers; The European Discovery of America.” It’s an abridgement of two previous volumes, one devoted to the northern voyages and the other to the southern ones. It’s also Morison’s last effort. He died in 1976. My copy is a paperback edition, published in 1986. Used.
Morison was a noted maritime historian, a Rear Admiral in the Naval Reserve, an accomplished sailor. His passion was the adventures of those seaman who set out into the unknown. Not satisfied with scholarly research, Morison sailed the routes for himself. He became the authority on Christopher Columbus.
“The Great Explorers” is told in detail – their ships, their lives aboard, their passions and their rewards, the political milieu in which they lived. The book is well supplied with illustrations, old and recent. It is an example of historical scholarship at its finest.
What struck a chord with me, was a comment in the introduction. Morison writes:
“But it has fallen to my lot, working on this subject, to have read some of the most tiresome historical literature in existence. Young men seeking academic promotion, old men seeking publicity, neither one nor the other knowing the subject in depth, write worthless articles, and the so-called learned journals are altogether too hospitable to these effusions.”
That made me wince. In my career as a scientist I’ve published on some rather worthless or trivial subjects. And may do so again, I fear.
And it made me wonder – what would Morison have made of the internet? Would he find it of value in his research? Would he cringe at historical or scientific information couched in political frameworks?
Read The Great Explorers for enjoyment. Sail the Atlantic with Morison. See the world through his eyes.
Dac Crossley
August 25, 2013.
“Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another’s skin, another’s voice, another’s soul.” – Joyce Carol Oates.