Rating: 
Summary: Great facts but overly glossy and speculative
Review: I did enjoy this book and was glad to learn the facts of Magellan's voyage. Perhaps the author suffers from a lack of historical information but I found that there was a lot of speculation on his part as to what was going on day to day. Many times he imparts what the crew was feeling where I don't imagine he had the foggiest as to their true motivations.This is in juxtapostion to the Nicholas Thomas book on Cook
"Cook: The Extraordinary Voyages of Captain James Cook", which is much more professionally written. Thomas will talk about the motivation of the crew when he in fact has a source for it. If he does speculate, he says so. There were also some factual inconsistencies. For instance, whether Magellan's allies cut the anchor line of the mutineers ship in the Port of St. Julian. Initially he says they did, but later he refers to them dragging their anchor. As another reviewer said, it's hard not to make this story compelling however. It's worth the read.
Rating: 
Summary: What a ride!
Review: I loved this book.
The amazing story of Magellan's circumnavigation of the world practically writes itself, especially with access to the journals of Antonio Pigafetta, a Venetian "passenger". The key for any author is not muck up this incredible story. Bergreen succeeds wonderfully by offering a smooth read. The books 400 plus pages fly by. Bergreen seemingly omits nothing and, the journey is here in all its gory, exciting, repellent, horrifying, shocking, wondrous, cruel, beautiful, nerve-wracking, spine-tingling detail.
Bergreen presents about as clear a picture of Magellan the man as possible from nearly 500 years away. The reader is left to admire his leadership and navigational skills and lament his capriciousness and hubris.
Coming on the heels of the vastly overrated Columbus journeys, Magellan's expedition was to prove equally significant, though more calculated and replete with many, many more adventures and tragedies.
A scant few of the original crew and only one of the five ships completed the journey. Along the way there were horrendous storms, mutinies, executions, horrible accidents, illness (scurvy in particular) and all manner of encounters with natives. These encounters could lead to everything from feasts and orgies to murder and dismemberment.
Bergreen does a wonderful job of framing the story within the perspective of the times and the religious, political and social climates.
To me the real hero of the journey emerges in the person of Pigafetta who did a superlative of chronicling the adventure. His must be some of the most thoughtful and thorough journals of their times.
Bergreen's book does him and Magellan's journey justice.
Rating:
Summary: What a ride!
Review: I loved this book.
The amazing story of Magellan's circumnavigation of the world practically writes itself, especially with access to the journals of Antonio Pigafetta, a Venetian "passenger". The key for any author is not muck up this incredible story. Bergreen succeeds wonderfully by offering a smooth read. The books 400 plus pages fly by. Bergreen seemingly omits nothing and, the journey is here in all its gory, exciting, repellent, horrifying, shocking, wondrous, cruel, beautiful, nerve-wracking, spine-tingling detail.
Bergreen presents about as clear a picture of Magellan the man as possible from nearly 500 years away. The reader is left to admire his leadership and navigational skills and lament his capriciousness and hubris.
Coming on the heels of the vastly overrated Columbus journeys, Magellan's expedition was to prove equally significant, though more calculated and replete with many, many more adventures and tragedies.
A scant few of the original crew and only one of the five ships completed the journey. Along the way there were horrendous storms, mutinies, executions, horrible accidents, illness (scurvy in particular) and all manner of encounters with natives. These encounters could lead to everything from feasts and orgies to murder and dismemberment.
Bergreen does a wonderful job of framing the story within the perspective of the times and the religious, political and social climates.
To me the real hero of the journey emerges in the person of Pigafetta who did a superlative of chronicling the adventure. His must be some of the most thoughtful and thorough journals of their times.
Bergreen's book does him and Magellan's journey justice.
Rating:
Summary: A good story - but a poorly read audiobook
Review: I must admit that I had high expectations of this book - so many great reviews, and the sort of history that I love. Unfortunately, for those that buy the audiobook, they may find it exceedingly painful. At first I thought the publishers were at fault, choosing a poor reader with no familiarity with the text. I was then surprised to see it was the author.
The author chooses to read this as if he is reading to a 4 year old. His exagerrated intonation makes you wonder whether little red riding hood will suddenly appear. And on words that are unfamiliar to the author, he will pause then speak the word slowly - as though to say 'now that was a very big word wasn't it?' I have listened to about 200 audiobooks, and I must say that this is the worst read of all of them. And I must admit that 2 of the others near the bottom were also read by the authors of those books.
Still, despite a painful reading, it is an interesting story. This is not great literature, but Bergreen succeeds in bringing Magellan's world to life. So I am giving the story four stars and the reading one star. The next time he considers creating an audiobook, I hope he chooses a professional reader.
Rating:
Summary: Great and definitive account
Review: I think this is probably the best account one can read about the momentous trip which began 10 Aug. 1519 at Seville, Spain, and ended at that same city on 8 Sept 1522, when 18 of the men who left on 10 Aug 1519 returned to Seville, to have their names inscribed on a plaque as the first men to sail around the world. The author's research seems to be thorough and he went to archives and to the sites important to the story he tells as he wrote his book. There are no footnotes as such, but there are source notes and a bibliography which satisfies me that this is a competent and trustworthy accoount of a rivetingly daring expedition. It is at times compellingly exciting, to such an extent that one had to remind oneself that they did find the strait which bears Magellan's name and did get thru it. This book is a winner.
Rating: 
Summary: Greed, Sex, Faith and Ambition
Review: If the folks over at Fidelity ever read this book, they may want to rename their famous "Magellan Fund" to something else. Most of what we learned about Magellan in grade school is sanitized hooey.
Historian Laurence Bergreen should be commended for revealing the true story in a highly readable, if somewhat uneven, book.
We learn in great detail not only the how's and what's of Magellan's epic journey, but also the underlying motivations of the great explorer and his five-boat crew. It's a compelling psychological portrait of the men who led the so-called "Age of Discovery" that reshaped global history forever -- a strange amalgam of greed, sex, faith and ambition, seasoned with power struggles and unimaginable suffering. Columbus seems positively tame in comparison.
Bergreen occasionally gets side-tracked in his narrative, for instance when he gets obsessed with who was or wasn't a Jewish "converso," but generally he stays on course. You'll enjoy the color photographs of important medieval maps and related documents. A more complete and detailed modern map would have been helpful at times (unless you're intimately familiar with, for example, the southern coast of Argentina). Overall, this is a great story written in high style.
Rating:
Summary: This is the Way to Learn History !!
Review: If we were taught history through the eyes and in the words of those who actually lived it, we would all be enthusiastic history buffs. Great story mostly taken from the journals of the scribe who survived. Less than 30 crewman and 1 ship of the 200+sailors on 3 ships who began, survived Magellan's 3 year voyage. Bergreen puts the historical perspective and fills in much detail. The book gives totally facinating,first hand, descriptions and information about life and discipline on sailing ships, about the cultures inhabiting the coasts of South America, and the Pacific islands, the treatment of the these cultures by the Explorers in the name of Christianity, the competition between European countries to "discover" for the economic benefits. All of this historical fact told in page turning style as if it were a novel.
Rating:
Summary: Its a gripper and well worth the read
Review: If you are looking for an exceptional read, a book that will keep you spellbound- this book so engrossing that that you ignore your family and friends to read it. Over The Edge of the World is an account of Magellans voyage of discovery of finding a water route to the Spice Islands in Indonesia, by sailing west around the Americans. It is a tale of courage, cowardice, mutiny, betrayal and the geo-political struggle between Portugal and Spain for the control of the lucrative spice trade. Bergreen is able to transcend time and take the reader into the world-view of these medieval sailors. By doing so, the reader is able to really appreciate the scope and daring of Magellans accomplishment. They were literally sailing over the edge of their known world. This is a study of leadership. Not only did Magellian have to navigate the tricky political shoals of the funding and outfitting of the expedition, but he had to lead the disparate captains of the five ship armada. At one time on the South American coast, three of the captains under his command had mutinied against his leadership. When all seemed lost, he was able to gain control of the mutiny, punish the conspirators and save his expedition. It is also a story of flawed leadership. Great leaders often have great flaws. Upon reaching the Philippians, Magellian began to lose sight of the goal of his mission- to secure Spains control over the spice trade and to return with a fortune of spices. He got involved in the political disputes of the native populations and the mass conversions of native populations to Catholicism which lead to inevitable conflict resulting in his death. It is interesting to note that upon reaching the Philippians, the fleet was relatively intact- losing only two ships, one which was wreaked, the other had deserted the expedition and returned to Spain; yet, the remaining ships were in good shape- their crews had regain their health and they were on the verge of success. Magellians death, however, had catastrophic effects on the expedition. A series of successive captain-generals did not have the leadership to hold the fleet together. One disastrous turn of events after another almost doomed the fleet as it stood on the brink of success. In the end, only one ship returned, its decimated crew of eighteen who were near death.
Its a gripper and well worth the read.
Rating:
Summary: Fact based adventure reading at it's best.
Review: If you like books about the age of discovery or sailing you will like this book much better than Blue Latitudes. The author stays focused on his subject and keeps it interesting.
Rating:
Summary: A formidable if glossy account of Magellan
Review: It has been a long time since a full volume on Magellan has been published. Most know the story of Magellan. He set sail from Europe in the early 1500s, traveled to South America, where he discovered the passage the retains his name, to the pacific. He traveled to Polynesia and mapped many islands. With his men on the verge of starving he became the victim of mutiny and natives on a pacific island. The surviving members of his once large, 5 ship, exploration party sailed for home via Africa. Only 18 men of the original hundreds returned to Spain. Their they told a story of savagery and hardship unparalleled in human travels(although later rivaled by the arctic explorers). This is an interesting account of Magellan's adventure. The downfall of this book is that it is flowery and full of flavor, almost as if the author was trying to view the world as those in 1500 viewed it. But the flowery language takes away from the feelings of accuracy. For instance one passage describes Magellan's men capturing 'giants' in southern Argentina. The author provides no context of what these 'giants' were, although he describes them as native men of south America. Where they indeed 'giants' that used to roam the earth in 1500? Were they simply large men, larger then the short Spaniards? This type of weakness and accepting of the crews descriptions is not authoritative. The author should have explored what tribes lived in the southern tip of Argentina and told us of what height these people were when anthropologists later mapped the natives of South America. Other then these subtle failures in writing style this book is good and it provides a much needed insight into life aboard Magellan's boats. A very folksy colorful account. A color insert is included with the book.
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