A SAMPLING OF BOOKS BASED ON RESEARCH IN THE COLLECTIONS

The name Marco Polo might have been less familiar to modern readers if not for a 16th-century chronicler named Giovanni Battista Ramusio. Although the writings of the 13th-century Venetian traveler had circulated in manuscript form long before, Ramusio revived them in the 1550s for his printed compendium of explorers, Navigationi e Viaggi (Navigations and Voyages). Ramusio was not alone; other entrepreneurial printers and editors were compiling narratives of exploration and discovery, taking advantage of an increasingly literate audience hungry for stories of faraway places.

In Travel Narratives from the Age of Discovery, University of Southern California history professor Peter Mancall has collected his own anthology of 37 travel accounts from the 15th and 16th centuries. He introduces each text with commentary about the journey and the circumstances leading to publication. One example comes from Frenchman Jacques Cartier, who explored Canada in the 1530s and described his interactions with the St. Lawrence Iroquois. The narrative was eventually printed in Italian in Ramusio’s Navigationi—a version that was then translated into English in Richard Hakluyt’s Divers Voyages Touching upon America (1582). Mancall has included the latter version in his anthology, reminding his own readers that the unique perspectives of writers and publishers should be considered when assessing the accuracy of a story.

Mancall directs the USC-Huntington Institute on Early Modern Studies, which offers seminars, lectures, and conferences on a variety of subjects ranging over four centuries, about 1450 to 1850. The institute’s global perspective gives equal attention to Europe’s emerging imperial powers and the indigenous cultures of the Americas.

“I’m interested in the encounter between Europeans and Native Americans,” says Mancall when describing his own scholarship. He realized that one way to tell the story of the formative period of contact is through the work of Hakluyt (1552–1616), that prolific publisher in England who went on to print The Principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation in 1589 and counted Shakespeare among his readers.

Hakluyt might have taken a page from Ramusio, but he drew his inspiration from a map. As a teenager, he visited his older cousin, also named Richard Hakluyt, whose map of the world seemed a fitting backdrop to a conversation that mingled geography with a reading of Psalm 107:23–24: “They which go downe to the sea in ships, and occupy by the great waters, they see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deepe.” The younger Hakluyt made a promise to himself to spread knowledge of every sea and land in God’s dominion.

In Hakluyt’s Promise, Mancall traces the productive publishing career that followed, recounting the remarkable influence of a man who started out as a minister and didn’t seem interested in traveling anywhere himself. A strong advocate of the Roanoke (1585) and Jamestown (1607) settlements, Hakluyt escaped the fate of disease and starvation by staying home in London to advise the Virginia Company and the East India Company. His enlarged edition of Principal Navigations (1598–1600) and Virginia Richly Valued (1609) played critical roles in England’s commitment to persevere in its colonial ventures.

“Hakluyt consulted many texts in producing his own work,” says Mancall. “I was able to look at those same books at The Huntington—in a way reconstructing Hakluyt’s own library.” Mancall was also able to use numerous editions of Hakluyt’s publications in The Huntington’s collection. These two new books are being published on the eve of the 400th anniversary of the settlement of Jamestown. The combined exploits of travelers and publishers ultimately demonstrate the unique role played in history by a third group—readers.

Hakluyt’s Promise will be available Jan. 1, 2007.

Reading Material in Early Modern England: Print, Gender, and Literacy

Heidi Brayman Hackel

Cambridge University Press, 2005

Brayman Hackel argues for a history of reading centered on the traces left by merchants and maidens, gentlewomen and servants, adolescents and matrons—precisely those readers whose entry into the print marketplace provoked debate and changed the definition of literacy. This interdisciplinary study of 16th- and 17th-century readers draws on portraiture, prefaces, marginalia, commonplace books, inventories, diaries, letters, and literature. 

America’s Joan of Arc: The Life of Anna Elizabeth Dickinson

J. Matthew Gallman

Oxford University Press, 2006

Anna Elizabeth Dickinson (1842–1932) was a charismatic orator, writer, and actress who rose to fame during the Civil War. Dickinson’s passionate patriotism and fiery style, coupled with her unabashed abolitionism and biting critiques of antiwar Democrats (known as Copperheads), struck a nerve with her audiences. Gallman explores Dickinson’s many public triumphs, but also discloses the barriers faced by her and other 19th-century women. 

The Humboldt Current: Nineteenth-Century Exploration and the Roots of American Environmentalism

Aaron Sachs

Viking, 2006

Naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) influenced many 19th-century Americans, including writer Walt Whitman and painter Frederic Church. Sachs looks specifically at the impact of Humboldt on the careers of four explorers: J.N. Reynolds, the founder of the 1838–42 U.S. Exploring Expedition; Clarence King, the first director of the U.S. Geological Survey; George Wallace Melville, chief engineer on the disastrous 1879 Jeannette expedition to the North Pole; and John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club. 

Los Angeles Transformed: Fletcher Bowron’s Urban Reform Revival, 1938–1953

Tom Sitton

University of New Mexico Press, 2005

Neo-progressive mayor Fletcher Bowron (1887–1968) presided over fundamental reforms in Los Angeles’ police department, public utilities, and other agencies charged with basic services, rooting out bribery, kickbacks, and influence peddling. After World War II, he initiated massive public housing and desegregation projects that alienated enough voters to cost him the 1953 election. Sitton demonstrates that the choices made during Bowron’s administration have had a direct bearing on how the city operates today.      

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