Laurence Bergreen

The astonishing tale of the first sea voyage to circumnavigate the entire globe. Magellan''s dramatic maritime expedition in 1519 discovered the straits that enabled Europe to trade with the Eastern spice islands and changed the course of history. In an era of intense commercial rivalry between Spain and Portugal, Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese navigator sailed to explore the undiscovered parts of the world and claim them for the Spanish crown in one of the largest and best-equipped expeditions ever mounted in the Age of Discovery. Yet of the fleet of five vessels under his command, only Victoria was to return to Spain after three harrowing years, her captain murdered, more than two hundred of her sailors dead from scurvy, torture, execution and drowning, and a small, ravaged crew that survived to tell the extraordinarily dramatic story.What emerged was a tale of mutiny, of orgies on distant shores, of claims of cannibalism, of death and disease, of missionary zeal and base cruelty, and of incredible discoveries: the earth was indeed round, the Americas were not part of India, the earth was covered mainly by oceans, and a new route that allowed Europe access to the fantastic wealth of the Eastern spice islands. Indeed, despite the devastating loss of life and vessels, the Victoria sailed back laden with enough cloves and other spices for the expedition to be considered a remarkable financial success. Accomplished despite the fact that European mariners were exploring a world that was unmapped and misunderstood, where superstition held sway and there were real fears that you could literally sail over the edge of the world, that sea monsters lurked in the briny depths, or that if you passed the equator, the ocean would boil and scald you to death, this was a truly spectacular achievement. The shockingly explicit diaries of Antonio Pigafetta reveal much of the story.This is a many-layered book -- a voyage into history, a tour of the world as it was emerging from the Middle Ages into the Renaissance, an anthropological account of exotic tribes and a chronicle of a desperate grab for political and commercial power. It is also a gripping adventure story, compelling and full of suspense and drama.

Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu is Laurence Bergreen's thrilling and masterly reconstruction of the life and wanderings of one the great adventurers of world history. The scion of a prosperous and tight-knit merchant family in a Venetian republic that was approaching the height of its political and trading power, between 1271 and 1275 Marco Polo accompanied his father Niccolo and uncle Maffeo on a journey east from Acre into central Asia along the Silk Route, eventually reaching China and the court of the Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, Kublai Khan. Entering the service of the Khan, he travelled extensively in the Mongol Empire.

Marco Polo, el icono universal de la aventura y el descubrimiento, ha inspirado más de seis siglos de fascinación popular y de mitologías espurias. Es el más celebrado de los exploradores europeos a Asia, el primer viajero global y el mas antiguo de los puentesa entre Oriente y Occidente. Sin embargo, su historia es poco conocida y las fuentes originales escritas en mas de media docena de lenguas han sido a penas consultadas. En esta brillante obra, la primera biografia realmente documentada de una de las figuras mas fascinantes de la historia, Laurence Bergreen reconstruye la odisea de Marco Polo con todo lujo de detalles y con un rigor historico que transportara al lector a sus viajes por la Ruta de la Seda y a los increibles episodios de su vida. Siguiendo la ruta de Marco Polo por China y Mongolia, Bergreen ahonda en las controversias que perviven entorno a la leyenda de Marco Polo, desvelando algunas de las incognitas que rodean su historia y persona y tanteando posibles respuestas a otras que quedan por resolver. A caballo entre la investigacion historica, el relato biografico y el libro de viajes, Marco Polo es la cronica de un hombre que extendio las fronteras del conocimiento y la imaginacion de su epoca que, a su vez, invita al lector de hoy a viajar a los limites d

Irving Berlin (1888-1989) was unable to read or write music and could only play the piano in the key of F-sharp major; yet, for the first half of the twentieth century he was America''s most successful and most representative songwriter, composing such hits as "Alexander''s Ragtime Band," "Cheek to Cheek," "Let''s Face the Music and Dance," "Puttin'' on the Ritz," "White Christmas," "Anything You Can Do," "There''s No Business Like Show Business," and "God Bless America." "As Thousands Cheer," winner of the Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award, explores with precision and sensitivity Berlin''s long, prolific career; his self-doubt and late-blooming misanthropy; and the tyrannical control he exerted over his legacy of song. From his immigrant beginnings through Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, and Hollywood to his reclusive and bitter final years, this definitive biography reveals the man who wrote 1500 songs but could never quash the fear that, for all his success, he wasn''t quite good enough.

La historia de un viaje que cambió el mundo. En 1519 Magallanes partió en un épico viaje que cambiaría la historia del mundo. Laurence Bergreen reconstruye, a partir de una investigación minuciosa, el viaje de Magallanes y su tripulacion, haciendo sentir al lector como si estuviera a bordo de los barcos. Como si de una novela de intriga se tratase, el autor nos cuenta el primer viaje alrededor del globo, plagado de motines, temporales, orgias y masacres y que en el fondo no escondia sino una lucha a brazo partido entre España y Portugal por el poder comercial y politico.

In this brilliant history of Prohibition and its most notorious gangster, acclaimed biographer Laurence Bergreen takes us to the gritty streets of Chicago where Al Capone forged his sinister empire.Bergreen shows the seedy and glamorous sides of the age, the rise of Prohibition, the illicit liquor trade, the battlefield that was Chicago. Delving beyond the Capone mythology. Bergreen finds a paradox: a coldblooded killer, thief, pimp, and racketeer who was also a devoted son and father; a self-styled Robin Hood who rose to the top of organized crime. Capone is a masterful portrait of an extraordinary time and of the one man who reigned supreme over it all, Al Capone.

Sexy, surprising, funny, insightful, and wildly entertaining (Huffington Post)the definitive biography of Giacomo Casanova, the impoverished boy who became the famous writer, notorious libertine, and self-invented genius in decadent eighteenth-century Europe.Today, Casanova is a synonym for great lover, yet the real story of this remarkable figure is little known. A figure straight out of a Henry Fielding novel, Giacomo Casanova was erotic, brilliant, impulsive, and desperate for recognition; a self-destructive genius. Over the course of his lifetime, he claimed to have seduced more than one hundred women, among them married women, young women in convents, girls just barely in their teens, women of high and low birth alike.Abandoned by his mother, an actress and courtesan, Casanova was raised by his illiterate grandmother, coming of age in a Venice filled with spies and political intrigue. He was intellectually curious and read forbidden books, for which he was jailed. He staged a dramatic escape from Venices notorious prison, I Piombi, the only person known to have done so. He then fled to France, ingratiated himself at the royal court, and invented the national lottery that still exists to this day. He crisscrossed Europe, landing for a while in St. Petersburg, where he was admitted to the court of Catherine the Great. He corresponded with Voltaire and met Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponteassisting them as they composed the timeless opera Don Giovanni. And he wrote what many consider the greatest memoir of the era, the twelve-volume Story of My Life. Laurence Bergreens Casanova recounts this astonishing life in rich, intimate detail, and at the same time, paints a dazzling portrait of eighteenth-century Europe, filled with a cast characters from serving girls to kings and courtiers, great fun for any history lover (Kirkus Reviews).

Louis Armstrong was the founding father of jazz and one of this centurys towering cultural figures, yet the full story of his extravagant life has never been told.Born in 1901 to the sixteen-year-old daughter of a slave, he came of age among the prostitutes, pimps, and rag-and-bone merchants of New Orleans. He married four times and enjoyed countless romantic involvements in and around his marriages. A believer in marijuana for the head and laxatives for the bowels, he was also a prolific diarist and correspondent, a devoted friend to celebrities from Bing Crosby to Ella Fitzgerald, a perceptive social observer, and, in his later years, an international goodwill ambassador.And, of course, he was a dazzling musician. From the bordellos and honky-tonks of Storyville--New Orleanss red light district--to the upscale nightclubs in Chicago, New York, and Hollywood, Armstrongs stunning playing, gravelly voice, and irrepressible personality captivated audiences and critics alike. Recognized and beloved wherever he went, he nonetheless managed to remain vigorously himself.Now Laurence Bergreens remarkable book brings to life the passionate, courageous, and charismatic figure who forever changed the face of American music.

From the author of the Magellan biography, Over the Edge of the World, a mesmerizing new account of the great explorer. Christopher Columbuss 1492 voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in search of a trading route to China, and his unexpected landfall in the Americas, is a watershed event in world history. Yet Columbus made three more voyages within the span of only a decade, each designed to demonstrate that he could sail to China within a matter of weeks and convert those he found there to Christianity. These later voyages were even more adventurous, violent, and ambiguous, but they revealed Columbuss uncanny sense of the sea, his mingled brilliance and delusion, and his superb navigational skills. In all these exploits he almost never lost a sailor. By their conclusion, however, Columbus was broken in body and spirit. If the first voyage illustrates the rewards of exploration, the latter voyages illustrate the tragic costs- political, moral, and economic.In rich detail Laurence Bergreen re-creates each of these adventures as well as the historical background of Columbuss celebrated, controversial career. Written from the participants vivid perspectives, this breathtakingly dramatic account will be embraced by readers of Bergreens previous biographies of Marco Polo and Magellan and by fans of Nathaniel Philbrick, Simon Winchester, and Tony Horwitz.

FASCINATING . . . Dramatic and timely. New York Times Book Review, Editors ChoiceIn this grand and thrilling narrative, the acclaimed biographer of Magellan and Columbus reveals the singular adventures of Sir Francis Drake, whose mastery of the seas during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I changed the course of history.Entrancing . . . Very good indeed. Wall Street JournalBefore he was secretly dispatched by Queen Elizabeth to circumnavigate the globe, or was called upon to save England from the Spanish Armada, Francis Drake was perhaps the most wantedand successfulpirate ever to sail. Nicknamed El Draque by the Spaniards who placed a bounty on his head, the notorious red-haired, hot-tempered Drake pillaged galleons laden with New World gold and silver, stealing a vast fortune for his queenand himself. For Elizabeth, Drake made the impossible real, serving as a crucial and brilliantly adaptable instrument of her ambitions to transform England from a third-rate island kingdom into a global imperial power.In 1580, sailing on Elizabeths covert orders, Drake became the first captain to circumnavigate the earth successfully. (Ferdinand Magellan had died in his attempt.) Part exploring expedition, part raiding mission, Drakes audacious around-the-world journey in the Golden Hind reached Patagonia, the Pacific Coast of present-day California and Oregon, the Spice Islands, Java, and Africa. Almost a decade later, Elizabeth called upon Drake again. As the devil-may-care vice admiral of the English fleet, Drake dramatically defeated the once-invincible Spanish Armada, spurring the British Empires ascent and permanently wounding its greatest rival. The relationship between Drake and Elizabeth is the missing link in our understanding of the rise of the British Empire, and its importance has not been fully described or appreciated. Framed around Drakes key voyages as a window into this crucial moment in British history, In Search of a Kingdom is a rousing adventure narrative entwining epic historical themes with intimate passions.

This edition does not include illustrations. Is there life on Mars? And if not, why not? These questions have gripped mankind throughout the twentieth century. In the shadow of the new millennium, The Quest for Mars seeks the definitive answers from the dedicated NASA scientists participating in the race to discover life on the Red Planet. Ever since I was a small child, Ive believed there was life out there. When I look at the magnitude of the universe, with its billions of stars, I believe that if life developed here on Earth, it must have developed elsewhere. We simply cant be unique. I really dont think were the most intelligent life forms in the universe, but thats just my gut feeling, Dr Claire Parkinson, NASA scientist. Of all the planets, Mars has exerted the most powerful allure over the human intellect and imagination. Generations of astronomers have expected to find clues to the origin and destiny of Earth and its inhabitants concealed amid the red storms sweeping across the surface of Mars. Today, the mystique of Mars is even greater. Public interest in the Mars mission is sky-high; the exploits of the tiny Mars Rover Sojourner in the summer of 1997 excited the greatest curiosity in a space mission in a generation. In The Quest for Mars Laurence Bergreen has unrestricted access to a team of NASA employees engineers, geologists and other scientists who are consumed by the search for proof of life on Mars. As one formidable obstacle after another attempts to scupper their quest for a deeper understanding of life on Mars and throughout the Solar System, the narrative takes us step by step through the exhilaration and the despondency of their extraordinary adventure. Nothing is off limits in this unique, behind-the-scenes story of space exploration.

A first-rate historical page turner. New York Times Book ReviewThe acclaimed and bestselling account of Ferdinand Magellans historic 60,000-mile ocean voyage.Ferdinand Magellans daring circumnavigation of the globe during the Age of Discovery was a three-year odyssey filled with sex, violence, and amazing adventure. Now in Over the Edge of the World Updated Edition, prize-winning biographer and journalist Laurence Bergreen entwines a variety of candid, firsthand accounts, bringing to life this groundbreaking and majestic tale of maritime history and discovery that changed both the way explorers would henceforth navigate the oceans and history itself.Now updated to include a new introduction commemorating the 500th anniversary of Magellans voyage.This riveting work of narrative history reveals:First Circumnavigation: The astonishing true story of the three-year, 60,000-mile odyssey that proved the world was rounda journey of mutiny, violence, and unbelievable hardship. A Gripping True Adventure: Discover the sex, storms, and starvation that plagued the 260 sailors who set out from Spain, and the dark secrets of the handful of gaunt survivors who returned. The Age of Sail: Drawn from candid, firsthand accounts, this majestic tale brings the sixteenth-century world of discovery to life, changing history and navigation forever. Historical Biography: A fascinating portrait of Ferdinand Magellan, the driven, visionary, and brutal captain who became a man without a country to complete his quest.

Marco Polo explorador, aventurero e inspiración de descubrimiento. La biografía definitiva de la mano de Laurence Bergreeen.Marco Polo, el icono universal de la aventura y el descubrimiento, ha inspirado mas de seis siglos de fascinacion popular y de mitologias espurias. Es el mas celebrado de los exploradores europeos a Asia, el primer viajero global y el mas antiguo de los puentes entre Oriente y Occidente. Sin embargo, su historia es poco conocida y las fuentes originales escritas en mas de media docena de lenguas han sido a penas consultadas. En esta brillante obra, la primera biografia realmente documentada de una de las figuras mas fascinantes de la historia, Laurence Bergreen reconstruye la odisea de Marco Polo con todo lujo de detalles y con un rigor historico que transportara al lector a sus viajes por la Ruta de la Seda y a los increibles episodios de su vida. Siguiendo la ruta de Marco Polo por China y Mongolia, Bergreen ahonda en las controversias que perviven entorno a la leyenda de Marco Polo, desvelando algunas de las incognitas que rodean su historia y persona y tanteando posibles respuestas a otras que quedan por resolver. A caballo entre la investigacion historica, el relato biografico y el libro de viajes, Marco Polo es la cronica de un hombre que extendio las fronteras del conocimiento y la imaginacion de su epoca que, a su vez, invita al lector de hoy a viajar a los limites de la historia.

Se cumplen quinientos años del inicio de la primera circunnavegación de la Tierra. En agosto de 1519, al mando de una flota de cinco barcos y más de doscientos tripulantes, Fernando de Magallanes zarpo del puerto de Sevilla y emprendio el viaje que demostro que la Tierra era redonda, que las Americas estaban a miles de kilometros del continente asiatico y que los oceanos cubrian la mayor parte de la superficie del planeta. Esta travesia adquiere toda su dimension en este libro, que recrea no solo el diario de viaje del erudito italiano Antonio Pigafetta, sino numerosos testimonios de los marineros supervivientes. Unido a una exhaustiva investigacion, esta obra nos muestra las multiples perspectivas desde las que se puede ver el primer viaje alrededor del mundo y pone de manifiesto, como señala el autor en el nuevo prologo que acompaña a esta edicion, la maraña de conflictos causados tanto por la lucha contra las fuerzas de la naturaleza como por la ambicion y la deslealtad.

Edición conmemorativa del 5.º centenario del inicio de la primera vuelta al mundo. Se cumplen quinientos años del inicio de la primera circunnavegación de la Tierra. En agosto de 1519, al mando de

La historia de un viaje que cambió el mundo: Magallanes hasta los confines de la TierraEl espectacular viaje alrededor del mundo que Magallanes emprendió en el siglo XVI fue una odisea de tres años llena de violencia, sexo e increibles aventuras. Sin embargo, su gesta ha pasado a la historia como uno de los viajes de exploracion mas importantes que jamas emprendio la humanidad.

Marco Polo explorador, aventurero e inspiración de descubrimiento. La biografía definitiva de la mano de Laurence Bergreeen. Marco Polo, el icono universal de la aventura y el descubrimiento, ha insp