Original spin: how lurid sex fantasies gave us "America." (letters of Amerigo Vespucci)

The Washington Monthly | March 1, 1993| | Copyright

When I was in Mrs. Poulnot's third grade class, history was taught in tableaux. Christopher Columbus was forever peering from a gunnel, crying "Land ho!" Amerigo Vespucci was eternally gazing at the stars, sextant in hand.

In the past year, many of us have had the Columbus tableau radically rearranged. Among other things, we now know that he was not the first to spy land. A simple seaman named Rodrigo de Tirana actually had that honor. Now, in my mind's eye, Columbus has stepped back from the bow; I see him down below, writing false log entries, mumbling to God and worrying ...

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