Straits: Beyond the Myth of Magellan

Le résumé fourni par la source

Straits examines Ferdinand Magellan and his expedition, which allowed for a new image of the world, in a style that is sometimes more scholarly and at other times more popular. Felipe Fernández-Armesto aims to elucidate what has made Magellan still relevant in universal history, 500 years after his voyage. Fernández-Armesto eruditely contextualizes Magellan's expedition; at times he reflects on the voyage's later impact via literature, cinema, and music.The book consists of ten chapters that proceed from 1492 to 1521, almost in the style of a travel diary. With this, Fernández-Armesto tries to show the stages and events that marked Magellan's history but also the facts that forged a complex character, composed of contradictions but above all certainties. The endnotes and index, like beacons, provide points of easy entry into the book and points for further exploration. Numerous period images and maps help the reader understand the many dates and places discussed.Chapter 1 seeks to contextualize Magellan's voyage by presenting the convulsive political and environmental context of his childhood, including the diseases and biological changes brought by the New World. Fernández-Armesto tries to connect the navigator's upbringing with his desire to explore, to live a life full of risk. Fernández-Armesto also provides information in an orderly and easy-to-understand way on Magellan's early experiences in the Indian Ocean and Africa and on the commercial context in which China and India were the most important centers of trade in the year of his great expedition.Chapters 2 and 3 present the debates surrounding Magellan's education in Portugal, through which he learned about Greek culture and cosmography, and his time in Morocco, which taught him the importance of trade with Asia and of making his name known in the Iberian courts. Fernández-Armesto shows Magellan's initial connections with King Manuel and later his arrival at the order of Charles V, which was questioned due to the possible danger of appointing a captain from Spain's direct imperial competitor. Fernández-Armesto complements all of this with a rich analysis of the courts of Portugal and Spain since the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) and the role of characters such as Cristóbal de Haro and Ruy Faleiro.Chapter 4 shows how Magellan obtained financing and permits for the expedition. It examines some little-known investors in the negotiations: Juan de Aranda, Diego de Haro, Francisco Faleiro, and Alonso Gutiérrez. It also comments on the expedition's cost and some events preceding the voyage, such as Faleiro's resignation due to “ill health” (p. 114).Fernández-Armesto then analyzes Magellan's voyage across the Atlantic in 1519. Chapter 5 introduces characters such as Antonio de Pigafetta and focuses on what was described in the voyage's very hard first days and on what Fernández-Armesto calls an “ethnography” of the area that is now Brazil. Chapter 6 describes the crew's early conflicts and impressions of Patagonia's landscape. Fernández-Armesto focuses on their encounter with the Indigenous peoples, whose knowledge the crew used to obtain food and navigate. Of course, Fernández-Armesto refers to the famous Patagonian giants, which are part of the voyage's mythologization and Europeans' subsequent desire to go to the area. He shows how this imaginary of the Patagones has historical roots in antiquity and the Middle Ages.Chapters 7 and 8 describe the passage through the Strait of Magellan and the questions that Fernández-Armesto imagines arose among the crew before a passage that, due to the route's difficult conditions, the sailors would have known would not be very profitable. He also describes their voyage across the Pacific, which was not as calm as had been claimed, and the complexity of geographically locating those unknown latitudes.Chapter 9 describes the anxiety generated by Magellan's decisions in the Philippines, such as his evangelizing policies and his use of force to establish alliances with the region's inhabitants. It also examines the mystery surrounding his death. The final chapter reflects on Magellan's contribution to global history and “planetary consciousness” (p. 265). It analyzes the extent to which it is correct to consider Magellan a hero and how his name is still used in reference to projects that think of the beyond by organizations such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.Straits is an important contribution, particularly for orderly presenting data and facts that others had presented in a scattered manner. However, the book is less successful in analyzing why the expedition is still used to think about the future. It is true that the voyage went beyond the limits of what is known, but the book does not discuss much this aspect of the voyage. In terms of secondary sources, Fernández-Armesto focuses on writings from the Iberian Peninsula and the United States, leaving aside what has been written in Latin America and other parts of Europe and thus neglecting numerous works that would have enriched the text. Nonetheless, the careful, well-organized discussion of the people, deeds, and contexts of Magellan's voyage makes Straits a valuable contribution to understanding not only the circumnavigation but also the geopolitics of the early sixteenth century.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.