North American Exploration Volume 1: A New World Disclosed

Abstract

"North American Exploration Volume 1: A New World Disclosed" edited by John Logan Allen is reviewed.

North American Exploration Volume 1: A New World Disclosed. Edited by JOHN LOGAN Ar.UN.

Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1997, 538 pp. 72.00. ISBN 0 8032 1015 9

The recent quincentennials of both the Columbus voyages to the Americas and of John Cabot's journey to Newfoundland provide an appropriate timing for this three-volume study, which is a collaborative and comprehensive overview of North American exploration. John Allen clearly outlines his aims by stating that the volumes concentrate on three major aspects of the exploration process. The focus is, firstly, on the relationship between pre-existing and preconceived geographical lore and the evolution of the goals of exploration; secondly, upon the links between that lore, the new material obtained during explorations and the decisions explorers made; and finally, on the connections between these processes and the resulting geographical pictures of newly discovered lands.

Throughout Volume 1, discovery, exploration and imagination are recurrent themes. Alan Macpherson's chapter on Pre-Columbian discoveries investigates the point that these had to rely heavily upon imagination what was imagined and what were the real contacts between Europe and North America before Columbus? G. Malcolm Lewis discusses the place of the native North Americans' cosmological ideas and their geographical awareness, and comments upon the extent to which Europeans recognized the differences that existed between the native and European ideas of space and place; an awareness that was not fully appreciated until well into the seventeenth century.

The following three chapters by Robert Fuson, Robert Weddle and Dennis Reinhartz, and, finally, Oakah Jones, all concentrate upon the early stages of North American exploration by Europeans, particularly Spanish explorers. The final three chapters discuss the European exploration of the continental margins during the sixteenth century. David Quinn focuses upon the Northwest Passage. This is followed by Karen Kupperman's study of how knowledge of the shape and potential of the East Coast evolved between 1524 and 1610. In the final chapter, Michael Mathes turns attention from the Atlantic the focus of the previous chapters - to a discussion of the early exploration of the Pacific coast. As a result of the efforts and often hazardous voyages of the explorers discussed in the eight chapters, the continent was of quite well-known proportions and outline by the early seventeenth century.

As one would expect from authors of such scholarship and expertise, the individual chapters are very well crafted, and supported by 57 pages of end notes and a four-page bibliography. Such studies rely upon maps, and the eight chapters are supported by over 60 illustrations and maps. The constraints of the book size meant that these illustrations are rather small, and much is lost in the reduction process, leaving one to turn to appropriate atlases and other sources for clearer versions of the Vespucci and Ribeiro maps.

These comments aside, Allen is to be complimented upon his vision in initiating this three-volume project, and upon his skills as Editor. The whole is a fascinating, deeply researched study of exploration, and the reviewer eagerly awaits the later volumes. Anyone interested in the exploration of North America will find this book both essential and convement reading.

JOHN F. DAVIS