The 500th anniversary of the voyage of Christopher Columbus spurred a host of politically motivated groups and organizations to attempt to recast the history of the Americas. Most of these revisionists use the past as a tool by which to advance politically correct goals, particularly in opposition to the US. Through books, lobbying campaigns and protests, they are seeking to turn the anniversary commemoration into an occasion for repentance rather than celebration.

When Columbus landed in 1492, the New World was far from being a vast expanse of empty wilderness: it was home to some seventy-five million people. They ranged from the Arctic to Tierra del Fuego, spoke as many as two thousand different languages, and lived in groups that varied from small bands of hunter-gatherers to the sophisticated and dazzling empires of the Incas and Aztecs. This brilliantly detailed and documented volume brings together essays by fifteen leading scholars field to present a comprehensive and richly evocative portrait of Native American life on the eve of Columbus's first landfall. Developed at the D'Arcy McNickle Center for the History of the American Indian and edited by award-winning author Alvin M. Josehpy, Jr., America in 1492 is an invaluable work that combines the insights of historians, anthropologists, and students of art, religion, and folklore. Its dozens of illustrations, drawn from largely from the rare books and manuscripts housed at the Newberry Library, open a window on worlds flourished in the Americas five hundred years ago.

Chock-full of little-known facts and written with you-are-there immediacy, this volume explores everyday life in Spain at the end of the 15th century.

When Columbus arrived in the Americas there were, it is believed, as many as 2,000 distinct, mutually unintelligible tongues spoken in the western hemisphere, encompassing the entire area from the Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego. This astonishing fact has generally escaped the attention of historians, in part because many of these indigenous languages have since become extinct. And yet the burden of overcoming America's language barriers was perhaps the one problem faced by all peoples of the New World in the early modern era: African slaves and Native Americans in the Lower Mississippi Valley; Jesuit missionaries and Huron-speaking peoples in New France; Spanish conquistadors and the Aztec rulers. All of these groups confronted America's complex linguistic environment, and all of them had to devise ways of transcending that environment - a problem that arose often with life or death implications. For the first time, historians, anthropologists, literature specialists, and linguists have come together to reflect, in the fifteen original essays presented in this volume, on the various modes of contact and communication that took place between the Europeans and the "Natives." A particularly important aspect of this fascinating collection is the way it demonstrates the interactive nature of the encounter and how Native peoples found ways to shape and adapt imported systems of spoken and written communication to their own spiritual and material needs.

A best seller in Latin America in the 1980s, this novel of life in fifteenth-century Spain depicts a world in which both the Moors and the Jews are under attack. This is the formative period of the phenomenon known today as Crypto-Judaism, and Aridjis's widely praised book, now available for the first time in an American paperback edition, will find a broad audience among readers fascinated by this aspect of Jewish history. "In 1492, the Catholic rulers, Ferdinand and Isabella, expelled the Jews from Spain. In Homero Aridjis' novel, the great saga of the expulsion comes to life with both historical and poetic resonance. A great Mexican poet, Aridjis embraces history and fiction with the warmth and insight of the lyrical vision."--Carlos Fuentes "In this highly readable novel which deals with a special and painful chapter in history, Homero Aridjis combines erudition, sensitivity and poetic imagination. I recommend it warmly."--Elie Wiesel "A novel of literary subtlety and sensibility. Few contemporary writers have captured so profoundly and with such style this era marked by three essential events: the establishment of the Catholic sovereigns, the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, and the discovery of America."--El País (Madrid) "Among worldwide bestsellers, 1492 is the most similar to Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose; both are concerned with the trials of heretics and the violence employed against the dissident. Aridjis gives an encyclopedic vision of catastrophic times."--La Jornada (Mexico City)

The spellbinding story of the year that changed our world forever. A novel that captures the passion, glory, and spectacle of the struggle for power and wealth waged by the Christians and the Moors . . . and the human tragedy and personal triumph that forever changed our world. 1492 is captivating . . . extraordinarily vivid --Publishers Weekly.

Since its original landmark publication in 1980, A People's History of the United States has been chronicling American history from the bottom up, throwing out the official version of history taught in schools -- with its emphasis on great men in high places -- to focus on the street, the home, and the, workplace. Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People's History is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of -- and in the words of -- America's women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers. As historian Howard Zinn shows, many of our country's greatest battles -- the fights for a fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women's rights, racial equality -- were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance. Covering Christopher Columbus's arrival through President Clinton's first term, A People's History of the United States, which was nominated for the American Book Award in 1981, features insightful analysis of the most important events in our history. Revised, updated, and featuring a new after, word by the author, this special twentieth anniversary edition continues Zinn's important contribution to a complete and balanced understanding of American history.