Enemies of Christopher Columbus

Columbus Day is observed on the second Monday in October and although it isn't Columbus Day yet I thought I'd share with you this short sample video (real player) of Thomas Bowden discussing his book The Enemies of Christopher Columbus.

I've been meaning to get this for some time now (anyone care to donate on my behalf?). More and more Columbus is smeared by multiculturalists as a genocidal imperialist. Bowden doesn't see it that way and presents the case in Columbus' defense. From the description of the book:

Was Christopher Columbus a hero or a villain? Was he a brave explorer whose discovery of the New World helped civilize a savage wilderness—or was he a poor lost sailor who stumbled onto occupied territory and helped destroy an Indian paradise?

The Enemies of Christopher Columbus, written in a brisk, question-and-answer format, provides lucid responses to the "politically correct" primitivists who condemn Columbus for having brought civilization to the Western hemisphere.

This new book shows that, contrary to the myths spread by multiculturalism, American Indians did not live in an earthly paradise before Columbus arrived—they were poor, ignorant, scared, superstitious, and cruel. This was not due to any racial or ethnic inferiority but to a lack of civilization. The spread of Western values not only brought enormous new opportunities to the Indians but led eventually to the birth of the United States of America, the greatest nation in world history, where people of every race and ethnicity can live together in peace and prosperity.

This volume also includes excerpts from notable writers such as Washington Irving, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, and Thomas Jefferson, whose views (unvarnished by "political correctness") on Columbus and on the Indians may startle the modern reader.