The Discovery of Mankind

"'With equal skills as scholar and story-teller, David Abulafia gets to the heart of a subject that matters to today's world: how our understanding of human nature began to emerge in the late medieval Atlantic, where each new encounter between previously unfamiliar peoples and cultures challenged and transformed existing notions. No other book covers the subject so thoroughly or approaches it with such brilliance.' Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Tufts University 'David Abulafia's masterful study reorients our understanding of the age of Columbus. His meticulous research takes us to the Canary Islands, the Caribbean, and Brazil and puts the European 'discovery' of the Americas into an Atlantic context where it belongs. With extraordinary erudition and sophistication he shows us how the encounter with the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere shaped early modern European culture.' Peter Mancall, University of Southern California"