Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe (P.S.)

It is very sad that in the presentation of the book you can find in this web, there is not any comment or even a reminder about the man in charge of the survivors of that trip. It was the spaniard Sebastian Elcano and he was the first in circunnavigating the globe. Magallanes died at the half of that trip. Let's be rigorous and give the honor to whom deserve.

As an Audiobook consumer, Over the Edge of the World left me breathless. The recounting of the history, journey, and culture of our world in circa 1500 was superb. Perhaps many text-based consumers missed out on the imaginary aspects that present in audio form. Since I had no visual cues, I had to find maps online, and followed the journey in that fashion. I had the pleasure of "hearing" the Portuguese names pronounced by the narrator, rather than plodding through foreign language in text. I now have a firm concept of the political and cultural state of the world 500 years ago. I flunked Freshman History in college, the only mark on my otherwise 4.0 record. After years of reading and writing fiction, I've now found a new passion for history - provided it is presented in a narrative form.
Every night, as I watch the crimson and silver sunset on the Pacific from my beach home in Southern California, I imagine Magellan and his heroic but tortured crew, and say to my husband, "There it is - - the Edge of the World."

I was afraid this book would lack detail since it depicted events 500 years ago, but there was a passenger who, fortunately, became a primary source, and kept the narrative interesting. The opening scene of the book, with the ghostly ship arriving back in Spain, grabs the reader's attention, then there is a long discussion of Magellan's efforts to get the expedition funded and underway. After wading through this moderately interesting segment, the story really picks up once the armada sails. From then on, I was totally hooked and couldn't wait to see what would happen next. I highly recommend this book. It is not a dry tome, as I suspected at first, but a highly readable account of one of the most amazing voyages of all time.

A truly terrifying and detailed eyewitness account of Magellan's voyage westward around the world by sea. It is not hard to get sucked in by Magellan's political persistence, and his entire crew's efforts at survival as they stepped off land they knew to a waterworld larger, deeper, and yet more inhabited than anyone knew. No modern reader can understand what it meant in the 16th century to board a ship to a world where entire continents and oceans were unknown, and longitude was uncalculatable. It was far more daring than the oft-compared space travel, where all the "heavenly" bodies are well-known, and location is calculated down to the last centimeter. At the same time, I found the story equally frightening for describing what still exists in large measure: leaders of countries competing brutally for money, luxury, and indulgences, exploiting the bravery and suffering of loyal common men, poisoning the natural curiosity between cultures. And through it all, women figuring prominently ... as sexual chattel. What we now know is that the world is round, most of it navigable waters. But the lands are populated with scientifically advanced savages. Magellan's story may not make you seasick, but it will surely make you dizzy.

This is a fascinating read, full of details (politics of the time, how ships operate, torture, sexual mores of various tribes around the world, etc.). The story of the first voyage around the world is so amazingly dramatic one would say "too far fetched" if it were fiction. Every page is so rich with detail that you want to just slow down as you read. The only slight flaw is that the characters do not come quite as alive as I would have liked. But everything else about this book is so good, it's well worth reading.