A look at some of failures of Europeans in their attempts to conquer the world; by Simon Park

I often read non-fiction books on the commute to work (audio books), and until this year rarely reviewed them on Woehammer. And so I found myself listening to Wreckers – Disaster in the Age of Discovery.

From the Book

Wreckers sinks the old narrative of imperialism. In place of swashbuckling adventurers bringing home great riches. We see a series of failures on the part of the Europeans. Christopher Columbus suffers several shipwrecks and dies trying to persuade the world that America was, in fact, China. Vasco de Gama, known as the first European to reach India by sea, was in fact guided across the Indian Ocean by a Gujrati pilot.

Wreckers taps into a thirst for stories of the sea and throws myths we have long been told about European empire-building overboard, transporting readers instead on voyages tragically cut short and introducing them to new characters whose lives illuminate dark spots of a foundational period in world history. By looking at the disasters rather than the accomplishments we get a new and exciting take on history.

Review

Unfortunately, this is definitely a case of don’t judge a book by it’s cover… there are a list of shipwrecks and some of the tales involve them but most of them involve no shipwrecks and no tales of the sea. This most definitely feels like a bait and switch of promising something unique whilst immediately going to Columbus, Vasco de Gama and the Conquistadors.

So the stories will have been heard before and whilst Simon Park tries to shed new light on them, or make it clear where locals helped the Europeans, there is not enough different from other books on the subject. And that is a disappointment as I had hoped for new stories, especially those from a non-British perspective…

But in the end it was mostly covering ground (or sea) that an occasional reader of history like myself has already read.

Verdict

If you need a quick reminder of the flows of the European conquest and colonisation of the world then this does provide a good overview and tries to include the non-Europeans involved. But that often comes across as trying to share any responsibility. I’m sure that isn’t the authors intention but by attempting to bring to light the involvement of others, he absolves the Europeans of the time of some of guilt.

If you are a regular reader of history, there’s little new here to recommend it though.

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— Declan & Eeyore