11th October is observed as Columbus day this year. Since I’m not from the States, I initially didn’t know about the significance of Columbus Day. Still, since I’m in contact with a few people who celebrate this day, I’ve become familiar with it.
Being a reader, I can’t help myself searching for books related to any new concept I come across and that’s the first thing I did when I got to know that there’s a thing called Columbus day. Reading books related to it helped me understand the concept and its significance much better, and now, I can explain it to anyone without error.
Columbus day is celebrated in many countries of the United States to honor Christopher Columbus’s landing in America. Not every country in the States celebrates this day as Columbus day but as Indigenous People’s Day. Some available books are reading, which will help you understand the concept in a better way.
Now, it’s time for me to share more about Columbus day with you and some of the books I read related to it. I would love to read them too.
What is Columbus Day?
Christopher Columbus was an explorer born in Genoa, Italy. Financed by the King and Queen of Spain, he set sail to find new trade routes to the far east. He wanted to find a new way to China, India, Japan, and other spice Islands to bring back spices and silk with him to Spain. Unlike many other sailors at that time, Columbus knew that the Earth was round and that if he sailed west instead of the east around the coast of Africa, he would still reach his desired destination.
After sailing for ten weeks straight, on 12th October 1492, the land was sighted and he landed on a small island in the Bahamas. He named the people over there ‘Indians’ as he was sure he had reached the Indies, but he had not. Instead, he had discovered the America. The arrival of Christopher Columbus in America in 1492 is celebrated as Columbus Day in the United States.
Columbus Day was first celebrated in 1792. It was celebrated on 12th October every year until 1971, when it was shifted to the second Monday of October every year. This day has lost its significance over time and is not celebrated in many significant parts of the States, but many people of Italian-American origin still celebrate it.
Since 1992, Columbus Day has coincided with Indigenous People’s Day, celebrated to honor the Native American people and commemorate their history and culture. Today, the second Monday of October every year is more commonly celebrated as Indigenous People’s Day when initially, this day was significant because of Columbus Day.
13 Books You Should Read To Understand Columbus Day
To understand more deeply, and to keep alive the significance of Columbus Day, here are a few book recommendations from my side that you should definitely go through.
1. 1491: New Revelations Of Americas Before Columbus
1491: New Revelations Of Americas Before Columbus is a non-fictional book written by Charles C. Mann in 2005, which is around 465 pages long.
This book contains the recent findings related to the Indigenous population in the Americas, suggesting that they were more populous, culturally diverse, and handled the land’s natural shape more sophisticatedly than what was earlier expected. This book will take to a trip to pre-Columbian America.
2. The Diario Of Christopher Columbus’s First Voyage To America
The Diario Of Christopher Columbus’s First Voyage To America is an autobiography written by Columbus himself and translated by Oliver Dunn in 1989.
Unfortunately, Columbus’s original accounts and records to the King and Queen of Spain remain lost. Still, the Diario is considered the closest record of Columbus’s first voyage and reduces the guesswork among the scholars about the specifications on this particular voyage.
Reading this would give you a close view of Christopher Columbus’s first voyage to discover the Americas.
3. The Life Of Christopher Columbus
The Life Of Christopher Columbus is an account written by John Stevens Cabot Abbott in 1875.
It is one of the most enthralling biographies of Columbus and how he changed the who struggled in the Spanish courts and how he created history through his voyages.
This book will give you a close account of the life of Christopher Columbus, the man in whose honor is Columbus day celebrated. Also, this book will make you understand the significance Columbus holds in the history of The United States.
4. The Four Voyages Of Christopher Columbus
The Four Voyages Of Christopher Columbus is a biography written by Christopher Columbus himself, published in 1946.
This book mentions Columbus’s first-hand experiences about the four voyages he made and how every time he set out for the Asian spice islands but never reached his desired destination. Instead, he went on discovering new foreign lands.
This book is a must as this will give the reader Columbus’s point of view about his voyages.
5. Columbus: The Four Voyages
Columbus: The Four Voyages is another biography of Columbus written by Laurence Bergreen in 2011.
This book will give the readers a critical and favorable point of view about Christopher Columbus, which is something new as all other biographies praise him for his achievements ignoring all other aspects.
This book should be read to give you a pretty contemporary and modern perspective about Columbus and his voyages.
6. Columbus And The Quest For Jerusalem
Columbus: The Four Voyages is another biography of Columbus written by Laurence Bergreen in 2011.
This book will give the readers a critical and favorable point of view about Christopher Columbus, which is something new as all other biographies praise him for his achievements ignoring all other aspects.
This book should be ready to give you a pretty contemporary and modern perspective about Columbus and his voyages.
7. The Race To The New World
The book’s full title is The Race To The New World: Christopher Columbus, John Cabot, And A Lost History Of Discovery, written by Douglas Hunter in 2011.
This book tells a lesser-known tale about Christopher Columbus, which led to the discovery of America. This book tells about the race Columbus was having with another Italian-based sailor, John Cabot, to find the fasters route to the east when he accidentally reached an island in the Bahamas.
This book should be read to realize that there were two people on the go, but Columbus reached first and led to the discovery of the Americas.
8. A Picture Book Of Christopher Columbus
A Picture Book Of Christopher Columbus is a biographic book by David A. Adler published in 1991.
Though this book is a biography like most of the books on the list, this one is comparatively easier to read and understand. It uses various illustrations to depict the story of Christopher Columbus.
This book is child-friendly, so it can be read by both children and adults to know about the history of Christopher Columbus.
9. A Coyote Columbus Story
A Coyote Columbus Story is a fictional book written by Thomas King in 1992.
This book creates a fictional scenario and indirectly tells how Columbus discovered America and took back indigenous people as slaves rather than the gold, silk, and spices he came looking for.
This book is made fictional so that even children could read and understand it, and it should be read to know why in so many places, Columbus Day is replaced by Indigenous People’s Day.
10. The Story Of Columbus
Dr. Nicholas Saunders wrote the Story Of Columbus in 2006.
This book contains a series of true stories and historical events related to Columbus in a step-by-step order to understand the reader better.
This book is packed with historical facts and explains more than just the voyages made by Columbus and hence, should be read at least once to understand history.
11. Christopher Columbus: His Life And Discovery In The Light Of His Prophecies
In The Light Of His Prophecies, Christopher Columbus: His Life And Discovery was written by Kay Brigham in 1990.
Like most of the other ones, this book portrays Columbus as a great man and even contains excerpts from Columbus’s unfinished work, Book Of Prophecies. The book also boldly expresses the author’s thoughts and opinions in this book.
This book is a must-read one as it also includes an individual’s opinions making it easier for the reader to form a perspective.
12. Imagining Columbus: The Literary Voyage
Imagining Columbus: A literary Voyage is written by Ilan Stavans in 1992.
In this book, the author has researched and investigated Columbus’s voyages and actions mentioned in any record available, be it novels, poems, documents, or any text.
If you’re really into knowing about Columbus in-depth, this book is a must as the author has done a lot of research to provide us with every bit of information about Christopher Columbus.
13. Where Do You Think You’re Going, Christopher Columbus?
Where Do You Think You’re Going, Christopher Columbus? was written by Jean Fritz in 1980.
This book depicts how Columbus wants to defeat everyone in the race by reaching the Indies first and the last thing he wanted was to discover a new continent which he eventually ended up doing.
Young children can even read this book as it explains the history related to Columbus’s first voyage in a fun and easy way.
Final Words
Some say he was a hero some say he was a ruthless villain but one thing is clear that Christopher Columbus was a significant personality in the history of the United States. It was his little accident that became the reason for America’s coming into being. To honor this man, Columbus Day is celebrated.
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