The European Discovery of America: The Southern Voyages, 1492–1616 by Samuel Eliot Morison

In The European Discovery of America: The Southern Voyages, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Samuel Eliot Morison recounts the great maritime explorations that opened the New World. With masterful scholarship and a sailor’s precision, Morison follows the voyages of Columbus, Magellan, Drake, and their successors as they charted the Caribbean, South America, and the Pacific. Drawing from logbooks, letters, and firsthand accounts, he vividly reconstructs the challenges, ambitions, and consequences of Europe’s expansion into unknown seas. This monumental work captures both the heroism and the human cost of discovery during the age of exploration.