This tells the story of a wonderful, changing world, the world of the Renaissance and the Reformation. With Columbus as the principal character, Prince Henry the Navigator, Ivan III, Johann Gutenberg, Queen Isabella, Leonardo da Vinci, Mohammed II, Nomi Mansa, Martin Luther, Vasco de Gama, Copernicus, Michelangelo and dozens of others all come to life as Foster weaves this pageantry of history. It is out of the increasing enlightenment of this era of religious, cultural, and scientific change that discovery and exploration began which would forever change the world as it was known.
PLEASE NOTE:
This text has been revised. In addition to the cover changes, Rea Berg made a few edits to the content of this edition to reflect language and descriptions that was less polarizing without changing the author’s intent. The edits were to change derogatory names of Native Americans—unless it was a direct quote, slaves are more properly referred to as “enslaved persons” and derogatory descriptions of women were also changed, particularly negative references to body types and physical appearance. Presumptive superiority of colonial nations “right” to subdue other nations was also moderated.
Here are the examples we spotted in the first 30 pages we skimmed (if you need more, please let us know!):
- On several pages, "Moslem" is changed to "Muslim," "Negro(s)" to "African(s)," and in one spot we saw "infidels" changed to "Turks."
- Page 30 has the biggest change we saw. There was a short paragraph removed: "None of the Africans brought to Portugal were ever mistreated. They learned trades, intermarried, and were soon looked upon as any other Portuguese peasant."
- And this was added to the end of the next paragraph: "Prince Henry, and most people of his day, justified their involvement in the slave trade by convincing themselves they were doing these 'poor souls' a service by introducing them to Christianity."
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