Samuel Eliot Morison’s new book on The European Discovery of America is partly flawed by polemicism, but stands as a mon

MORISON’S FLAWED VOYAGE

Samuel Eliot Morison still wields the formidable pen that has won him so much praise in the past; and the present volume is full of the enthusiasm, wit, and style we have come to expect from this grand old historian. But The European Discovery of America, like so many of Morison’s other books, is a flawed work. Morison has helped to popularize the Discoveries as a serious academic enterprise, and to smash a great deal of the mythology and nationalistic humbug that dominated thé field, but his work has been marred by a penchant for faulty conclusions, pedagogic prejudices, and bad translations (which have led him totally to misinterpret certain fundamental source materials) .

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Peter P. Witonski

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MORISON’S FLAWED VOYAGE

Samuel Eliot Morison still wields the formidable pen that has won him so much praise in the past; and the present volume is full of the enthusiasm, wit, and style we have come to expect from this grand old historian. But The European Discovery of America, like so many of Morison’s other books, is a flawed work. Morison has helped to popularize the Discoveries as a serious academic enterprise, and to smash a great deal of the mythology and nationalistic humbug that dominated thé field, but his work has been marred by a penchant for faulty conclusions, pedagogic prejudices, and bad translations (which have led him totally to misinterpret certain fundamental source materials) .