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Magasich-Airola, Jorge and de Beer, Jean-Marc “America Magica. When Renaissance Europe thought it had conquered Paradise”. Anthem Press, London. 2006. Pbk, viii, 208pp. Illus, bibliography, notes. ISBN 1-84331-186-0 £14.99 / $23.95

The basic outline of the contents of this book are fairly simple. It treats certain aspects of the exploration and exploitation of the Americas by Europeans, in particular how pre-conceived notions, derived mainly from texts from antiquity, came to be both an inspiration and a means of understanding the new lands that they had “discovered”.

For 15th century Europeans, there was a pressing need to discover new routes to the Indies, the Far East, the land of spices and other exotic goods. The expansion of the Ottoman Empire had seen older trading routes either closed or brought under “hostile” control and so they were looking for ways to get around this new obstacle. Traditional textual authorities, both religious and secular, suggested that beyond the known, lay lands of untold riches, of beings, human and animal, of unusual size and type, maybe even Paradise or The Garden of Eden. Previously these had been placed to the east of Europe, but a return to notions of a spherical Earth, suggested to those bold enough to venture forth, that a new way to the “East” could be found by travelling westwards across the Atlantic Ocean.

There was certainly knowledge of the voyages of St Brendan who appears to have visited not only the Faroes but even, perhaps as far as Iceland. By the middle of the 15th century the Azores had been discovered. Earlier Viking sailors had created colonies not only in Iceland, but also Greenland and (many would argue) the northeastern shores of what is now Canada, although the book suggests that the Spanish and Portugese sailors were unaware of them. Instead what propelled the intrepid mariners in their oceanic quests was a mixture of greed, evangelical fervor and a world view that placed all manner of delights (and horrors) in the new lands that were discovering.

Thus the discoverers interpreted the women they found along the banks of the great south american river “Amazons” - thus giving the river its present name; the presence of considerable quantities of gold meant that they must be in the area of El Dorado. Equally they searched, in vain, for the Fountain of Youth, King Solomon's Mines and the Garden of Eden. Not to mention some of the more exotic peoples previously reported from Asia such as the dog-headed Cynocephali, the headless Acephali and the one-legged Sciopods.  And the inspiration came also from more modern texts, such as Patagonia which the authors derive from a character in a 16th century Spanish chivalric text for land reported to be inhabited by giants.

Equally though the stories from the new worlds gave rise to another round of fantasy and wishful thinking among Europeans. A case in point being Gabriel-Francois Coyer's “Letter to Doctor Maty”, written in 18th century which described a utopian society in Patagonia, as did Restif de la Bretonne's “La Decouverte australe” from the same period. Sadly the reality for the Patagonian people was a process of extermination caused by disease and murder. One wonders though whether these tales of an ideal society in Patagonia were, in turn, responsible for the later emigration of Europeans to this part of the world?

A fascinating book, not without it's faults – the translation has the odd obvious error, the book lacks an index – always a minus point for reviewers, and the writing lacks any great sparkle. It does its job but the text is hardly a page-turner. The section of the imaginary islands is covered better elsewhere and I daresay much of the information won't be new to anyone really interested in the subject. That said, one of the advantages of it being a written by a French and Spanish team is that some of the source material may be unfamiliar.

Although of not of earth-shattering importance, the book covers interesting aspects of history (both of ideas and exploration) which should serve as a useful introduction to the subject.

6/10

Richard Alexander