ABSTRACT
For 500 years, Christopher Columbus's life and activities have attracted students, intellectuals, and history buffs. Books and articles about the events of 1492, ranging from the scholarly to the inane, continue to pour from the presses, over a thousand during the past twenty-five years alone. Without claiming to be exhaustive, this article will survey that literature. The intention is to produce a synthesis of studies that places Columbus within the context of European and world history in the late fifteenth century, with attention also to editions of source materials. Recent scholarship has expanded our knowledge of Columbus and the regional and global forces at work during the fifteenth century. Scores of biographies, written for the general reader, have portrayed Columbus's life in simplistic terms in order to offer a classic hero and illustrate moral lessons. One cannot overestimate the importance of Italian and Spanish commercial enterprise and venture capital in the first voyage of Columbus.
