Dangling on a precipice

Magellan’s three-year, 41,000-mile round-the-world journey from Spain in search of a route to the Spice Islands is among history’s great sea adventures. The explorer’s five-boat expedition was an attempt to succeed where Columbus had failed. It took him through the strait at the tip of South America that now bears his name, then on the terrifying leg across the Pacific, with provisions vanishing and no one aboard with any idea of when the next landfall would occur.

Only a single boat and 18 emaciated men managed to make it back to Spain in September 1522.

Bergreen’s vivid account benefits from extensive research and his own navigation of the Strait of Magellan and other key parts of the route. But it’s the epic survival drama that grips, spanning mutiny, torture and Magellan’s death in the Philippines.

-- Michael Koehn