14.05.2007 18:30

Instead of some physics stuff, I was supposed to read on the weekend, I read a book on Columbus (I am only half way through, somewhere in the Caribe for the first time.) It is quite interesting and well written, although there are some awkward sentences which to me seem like the author was trying to write "good style" in a complicated and antiquated way. But nevertheless, it's very entertaining. Me being forced to read through physics books and articles, where you (met at least!) advance very slowly and still only understand half of what is going on (me at least!) was wondering whether any well written history book is like this, something you read at night before you fall asleep. Where you can read hundreds of pages in row without this feeling of complete exhaustion, I have after a few pages of physics. If so, I am jealous. Schoggi, really.
There is one thing I am wondering: Columbus seems to have been the brickheadest brickhead of the world. There were many highly accomplished scientists of these days in Portugal and in Spain who told him that his calculation on how far India was west ways, was rubbish. But he didn't listen. And in fact as we know, those people were right, if they hadn't stumbled over a unknown continent, there is no way they could have made it to India. Before he finally set off, he made the Spanish court write down what his privileges were going to be if he made it. Most prominently things like being vice king of all the territories he was going to discover. It seems that the idea was, wherever he sets his foot, belongs to the Spanish crown and him as a vicegerent. This is what I don't understand: There had been trade going on between Europe and Asia for a very long time, there were descriptions of the Asian empires. Columbus himself carried with him a letter for the Aga Khan, so he had an expectation of what these Asian states were like. It was known that there were highly developed cultures, powerful and large and rich empires, who would be able to defend their independence. You couldn't expect them to say: "O hola, bienvenida Espana, finalmente podemos entregarte nuestro oro. Te esperamos desde hace tantos anos." Rather they would laugh at these fourty men, sell them some stuff and send them off again, and when they came back, more of them and strongly armed, there would fight. You could expect to establish trade connections with India, but not gain it as a colony without a war. And the Spanish they knew how long it can take to win a war against an equally strong enemy, they had just finished the reconquista. Of course, it's different if you expect to end up somewhere where there is nobody living or just some tribes in the bush hunting with spears. Those you can easily impress and kill with the "modern" European weaponry. Well and this was what happened. But how could they know? or if they didn't how could they expect it? Or was it only Columbus who expected it, because he was crazy anyway, and the catholics kings guaranteed him his rights, because they thought there wasn't ever going a Spanish governour of India?