Against contemporary stereotypes that associate the name Ferdinand Magellan with success in a variety of endeavors, Fernández-Armesto insists that the Magellan expedition was an utter failure, doomed from the start and entirely unprofitable. To make his case, he toggles between two forms of historical writing that might seem incompatible. On the one hand, he tells gripping stories and paints vivid pictures of, for instance, the Strait of Magellan and the daunting challenges it poses to sailing vessels (188–190). On the other hand, he brings his sources to the fore, assesses their strengths and limitations, and explains the choices that he has made in distilling the truth from texts often designed to occlude or distort it.
Generally speaking, Fernández-Armesto tends to believe Magellan’s detractors, the fellow officers and seamen who were deposed at various moments after returning to Spain (some of them after abandoning the voyage before it had reached the...