Christopher Columbus and the Conquest of Paradise by Kirkpatrick Sale. London/New York: Tauris Parke, 2006. First edition published 1990. 453 pp.



pdf format; a new scan



from the back cover:



Columbus has been both venerated as the great Discoverer and despised as the progenitor of centuries of aggressive colonisation and the destruction of fragile cultures. Now, 500 years after his death in the heart of Castile, comes a fresh reassessment of the man and his legacy. Kirkpatrick Sale uniquely examines the global consequences of the Discovery, revealing the colossal impact this brief moment in history had on a continent and on the world.



'This is a work of haunting attraction, of splendid magnitude, illuminating scholarship and compelling strength and imagination ... I am filled with admiration.' -- Joseph Heller



'In Kirkpatrick Sale's eloquent and passionate treatment, Columbus and the Columbian legacy become a paradigm for the ruthless expansion of Western Europeans overseas. Sale's examination of Columbus has a hard-minded quality that cuts through much obfuscation and legend ... Sale has written a

work of considerable virtues.' -- American Historical Review



'Kirkpatrick Sale's lucid The Conquest of Paradise [is] a meticulously researched piece of revisionist history which links Columbian values with environmental destruction.' -- New Internationalist



about the author:



Kirkpatrick Sale is a writer, editor, and environmental activist. He is the author of twelve books, including Human Scale, The Green Revolution, Dwellers in the Land: The Bioregional Vision, and Rebels Against the

Future: The Luddites and Their War on the Industrial Revolution - considered to be the definitive work on the Luddites. A contributing editor for The Nation, he also writes for periodicals in both the US and UK.