The book Wreckers overturns old narratives of imperialism, revealing the violent, chaotic, and improvised reality of empire-building from the 15th to the 17th century.

Figures like Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, and Ferdinand Magellan are celebrated for their maritime achievements – reaching America, India, and circumnavigating the globe – but the exclusive focus on these maritime missions distorts our view of the past. Many explorers ended up as castaways, hanging from the broken timbers of their wrecked ships, while those who survived often faced resistance and mockery from indigenous communities around the world.

Drawing on maritime stories from various languages and continents – from Brazil and Southeast Africa to India and the Philippines – Wreckers shares dramatic maritime stories and the events on land that followed. This offers an alternative timeline for the century after 1492 and sheds light on the cracks and rifts accompanying the expanding geographic reach of European ships.

Simon Park argues that even when Europeans provocatively claimed their superiority, the truth was that they were often driven by a deep sense of greed and envy, and their actions included many failures. For example, in the quest for gold, Martin Frobisher – who fancied himself a combined Columbus and Cortés of England – transported worthless stones by sea. In the search for spices, the ship of the captain and speculator Manuel de Souza de Sepúlveda was so overloaded that it jettisoned its aromatic cargo when it ran aground in the waters of South Africa.

Still, in every place they visited, Europeans relied on local knowledge and goodwill – leaning on the expertise of the indigenous people regarding languages, geography, food, and medicine. Wreckers uncovers the fragile balance between dominant European powers, the savvy locals who collaborated to advance their own agendas, and those who showed great persistence in resistance to European interventions.

Focusing on stories of failure, defiance, and transcendence, Wreckers – a term Park uses to refer to both those who were wrecked and those involved in wreckage – offers a fascinating and original narrative of a tumultuous era. It challenges the notion of unchecked European dominance and allows history to be reimagined as a space of possibilities then, now, and in the future.

Pages: 320, Dimensions: 16.1x16.1cm