Article: Conquerors and Missionaries - New York Times

RIVERS OF GOLDThe Rise of the Spanish Empire,From Columbus to Magellan.By Hugh Thomas.Illustrated. 696 pp. Random House. $35. AROUND 500 years ago, our hitherto slowly altering world began to change, and in amazingly swift ways -- ways that have affected us all, and make it impossible ever to go back. From a small and rather miserable peninsula -- an area commonly known as Christendom or Europe -- at the southwest corner of the gigantic Eurasian landmass, men began to venture forth in frail yet efficient wooden sailing vessels across thousands of miles of ocean. Carried westward and southward by winds and currents, they discovered what they came to term the ''new world,'' although it ...

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