Summary Of The Marvels Of Spain-And America

The Marvels of Spain-and America
In “The Marvels of Spain-and America” portion of “Beginnings to 1700,” chapter of The Norton Anthology, Wayne Franklin describes the events that have never been accomplished and described the new discovers made. The explorers explained the new discoveries and spoke about the amazing voyages: “As they listened with rapt attention, the voyager told of things undreamed of, plants and animals and most of all strange people whose uncanny customs, costumes, and beliefs astonished all who heard him” (3). These new encounters and accomplishments are shown through stories: “The story of Colon catches in miniature the extraordinary changes that were to occur as natives of Europe encountered natives of the Americas for

Franklin explains that that “The period of European exploration in the Americas produced a surprisingly large and intriguing body of literature” which was made possible “thanks to the establishment of printing in the half century before 1492” (11). Writing was considered important for many reasons. Writing helped communicate ideas and issues between countries. Franklin describes that “the great distance separating hemispheres made the coordination of intention and performance extremely difficult” (12). However, writing helped this issue by allowing information to travel from place to place. A very important benefit writing has provided us with is knowledge. Most of the lessons history has taught us comes from the writings of the historians and people living through the time periods: “That we know so much about the Europeans responded powerfully to that devastation in writing” (12). This main point can be supported by the “First Encounters: Early European Accounts of Native America” section of The Norton Anthology. This section includes conflict in history that needed to be put “into a proper historical context”, supporting the idea of writing being used as a historical benefit