The Nine Lives of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus, the Genoese navigator once considered a hero, is now blamed for bringing plunder and genocide to the Americas. In The Nine Lives of Christopher Columbus, Matthew Restall explores the central questions of Columbiana. Though we know a great deal about Columbus’s life, Restall demonstrates that Columbus was not as remarkable as many have assumed.

His afterlives, however, are another story: Restall narrates the international contest over Columbus’s bones and the dozens of claims on his birthplace, examining how he became a hero and more. The result is a kaleidoscopic account of a single man that becomes a new history of the modern world.