The first two chapters deal with Christopher Columbus. So far my sense of the authors purpose and foundational thoughts is accurate. A strong current of divine plan for the Americas (and specifically the United States) runs thru the text. A few other thoughts:

• Not as much original source material as I’d hoped for. For the most part the authors weave a historical narrative, retelling the past based on their research. Where the historical materials are silent, the authors must fill in the details; and it is here that their agenda comes thru. This isn’t necessarily a problem; it just isn’t what I was hoping for. The story is interesting even if I don’t buy the agenda that fills it out.

• Columbus is presented as a man whose noble desires were overcome by pride and greed. He seems to have felt a genuine sense of divine calling. Unfortunately, this calling was quickly drowned out by other noises: the allure of gold, the honor of royal attention, and international fame. I don’t pity him, but I can understand him.

• I don’t like the way the authors characterize the indigenous Caribbean people. For example, the following passage talks about how Columbus was losing sight of his divine mission:

“Gold - one can see the hand of the Devil here. Unable to overcome the faith of [Columbus] by sowing fear and dissension in the hearts of his men or by paralyzing him with despair, Satan had failed to keep the Light of Christ from establishing a beachhead in practically the only part of the world in which he [that is Satan] still reigned unchallenged.” (p. 42)

Really? The Americas were practically the only part of the world in which Satan still reigned unchallenged? Yet according to the authors own narrative it was the Europeans who raped, pillaged and enslaved the indigenous tribes, (The native population of Española plummeted from 300,000 to 20,000 in fourteen years!) and it was the tribes who demonstrated hospitality and kindness to the foreign visitors, resorting to violence only in retaliation. I’m not naive enough to paint a black and white picture, but it seems the only justification for saying Satan reigned in the Americas is the fact that Jesus’ name was not used.

Anyway, I’ll keep reading.