Book Nook: 1492

1492 opens in fifteenth-century Spain, which was, by any standard, a terrifying place. Throughout the Inquisition, torture, betrayal, and unexpected courage were expected elements of day-to-day life. The Muslim world struggled to keep the West in an economic vise, the Christian world fought back against their control of its trade routes, and Jews were caught in the middle: tortured if they assimilated, expelled or killed if they clung to their heritage.

1492 centers on a man who had one foot in the Jewish world, the other in the Christian world, and the radical idea that he could sail West to reach the East: Cristoforo Colombo. But contrary to what history books have led us to believe, Queen Isabella did not sell her jewels to fund Cristoforo’s voyage. The truth involves the Jewish investor, Luis de Santangel; Columbus’s Christian wife, Filipa, who gave him social acceptance and valuable contacts; and the beautiful and talented Jewish woman, Beatriz, who entered his life several years after the death of his wife.

I had a chance to review 1492, and it was quite the interesting look at Christopher Columbus. It's a story many of us grew up learning about with his voyage to America, but something that's often dry and relegated to the history books. This story brings it to live in a new way.

Newton Frohlich is the award-winning author of The Shakespeare Mask: A Novel, as well as 1492: A Novel of Christopher Columbus, the Spanish Inquisition & a World at the Turning Point and Making the Best of It: A Common-Sense Guide to Negotiating a Divorce. A former lawyer in Washington, D.C., he devoted eight years to the research and writing of 1492. He has lived in Washington, D.C., the south of France, and Israel and now makes his home on Cape Cod with his wife, Martha, a musicologist.