WRECKERS, disaster in the Age of Discovery

298pp., maps, illus., paperback, Penguin Books, London, (2025) 2026

ISBN: 9781405975094

Rather than focusing on the maritime achievements of figures such as Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama and Ferdinand Magellan -  reaching the Americas, India, and circumnavigating the globe - Simon Parks shares stories of failure, defiance and retribution that reveal the precarious balance between imperious European powers, locals who colluded to further their own agendas, and others who showed great tenacity in their resistance to European incursions, challenging the notion of unstoppable European dominance.

"Simon Park tells the dark, twisted, sometimes terrifying story behind the pageant we think we know: how Europeans went out to meet the world, ‘discover’ it and make their empires. He tells a story of lovers and cannibals, shipwrecks and mutinies and ruinous failures from a wide-angle view and a continent’s worth of sources. His immaculate scholarship puts the risk and the blood back into what sometimes seems just a lifeless parade, the human story of discovery" Michael Pye, author of The Edge of the World

"An excellent account of voyages in the Age of Discovery, focussing on the complex reality in which shipwreck and disaster were as frequent as successful landfall. Superbly written, entertaining and compelling, this book should be read by anyone interested in this pivotal period in history" David Gibbins

Simon Park is Associate Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Portuguese at the University of Oxford and Tutorial Fellow at St Anne’s College, Oxford.