A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus book

Irving's book "A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus" cannot be considered as an adequate authentic source because he put the book together speedily and impulsively, in the process sacrificing the deliberation needed for creating an accurate, reliable, and original work, as preferred by historians. Irving was even persuaded from time to time, perhaps to recompense for the impracticality of undertaking comprehensive and far-reaching research, to fully let his thoughts wander. As a consequence, perhaps, he reenacts imaginative scenes, not just from what the prevailing account and records evidently indicated had happened, but from what an acquaintance and understanding of the period of discovery directed Irving to believe might have happened (Hedges, 1956). On the other hand, the sources used by Irving for his book project can be deemed adequate. Alexander Everett, the Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States to Spain at the time summoned Irving to Madrid, to translate a collection of documents about Christopher Columbus that had been recently published. Therefore, such sources were adequate.

The reason between the difference found between the adequacy of Irving's sources for his book project and his book as a source on Columbus is that Irving was an author seeking to allude to American readers. As a result, his biography on Christopher Columbus was largely made up of theatrical and studied episodes, most of which were founded on myth rather than dependable and reliable sources. Therefore, a key shortcoming of his book as an adequate source encompasses the persistent mythic proclamation that it was solely the voyages of Columbus, which ultimately influenced the European people of his era, that the Earth is not flat. In fact, by the time, Aristotle had convinced people that the Earth was spherical (Russell, 1991). However, his sources for his book emanated from primary sources, from documents written by authors who had first-hand experience with navigation and with Columbus. In addition, Columbus' sources for the book encompassed information from navigators that had spent several years in voyage charting routes and perceiving different lands. Therefore, they can be deemed reliable and dependable sources.

Part II

Read Chapter V in Book I of Volume I of Irving's A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. The chapter, titled "Grounds on which Columbus founded...,"begins on page 52 of the book which is freely available as a Google eBook: http://books.google.com/books?id=uIADAAAAQAAJ. Also, look up confirmation bias. Say what it is and say whether Irving has established in that chapter that Columbus committed that mistake in reasoning. Justify your position.

Confirmation bias is the inclination of interpreting new evidence and proof of information as confirmation of one's existing beliefs or philosophies. In particular, confirmation bias can hinder an individual from taking into consideration significant information when making decisions as one would employ such beliefs and not the key facts. Columbus assumed that by undertaking a direct course from east to west, a navigator would reach the farthest end of Asia and thereby discover all intervening regions. In chapter V of the book, Irving has not comprehensively established that Columbus made the mistake in reasoning. This is largely because the achievement of Columbus' great undertaking was reliant on the errors that were initially made by great philosophers with regard to the imaginary magnitude of Asia towards the east and the assumption of how small the earth was. Therefore, it was not through reasoning but rather these (two) elements that caused Columbus to take such direction (Irving, 2013).

Columbus made the incorrect argument that the circumference of the Earth was considerably smaller in comparison to what his peers and contemporaries believed. It is because of this perspective that he came to the belief that the journey and voyage through boat from Europe to Asia would not only be conceivable but would also be relatively easy. What is more, owing to great philosophers at the time such as Ptolemy, people already had the idea that the earth was not flat. They disputed Columbus' conception and idea simply because the math that he was using was substantially wrong. As a result, in his voyage, Columbus ended up being lucky as he came across a new land, which though was not Asia, the region he had originally set off for (Irving, 2013).

Part III

Finally, comment on the adequacy of your sources for this project. A suitable source of information should be (1) disinterested and should be (2) an expert. You needn't comment again on Irving's book but you should consider your sources of information about Irving's book. Also, consider the quality of your sources on confirmation bias.

The sources used for this particular project on analyzing the information proffered by Irving's book are adequate and therefore can be considered reliable and dependable. To begin with, it is imperative to note that for any piece information to be considered suitable, it has to come from a source that is not only disinterested but also an expert. To begin with, the sources used for analysis are all from reputable academia sources, and hence reliable. Secondly, the authors that have written such papers are expert individuals in their respective fields and not simply individuals providing their opinions. For instance, William L. Hedges is an expert on American Studies. The same case applies to Russell J. B. who offers expert advice not only on Christopher Columbus but also on other historians. However, it is imperative to note that there might be some extent of confirmation bias with respect to quality of the sources used. In particular, William Hedges has been interested on the topic of Washington Irving as he started out by writing a dissertation on him even before he went on to write about the book. As a result, Hedges might be inclined to consider his thoughts and belief on certain matters to be correct even when they are not necessarily factual (Kelly, 2005).

References

Hedges, W. (1956). Irving's Columbus: The Problem of Romantic Biography. The Americas, 13(2), 127-140. doi:10.2307/979635

Irving, Washington. (2013). A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. 1). London: Forgotten Books.

Kelly, J. (2005). William L. Hedges, 82, professor and English chairman at Goucher. Baltimore Sun.

Russell, J. B. (1991). Inventing the flat earth: Columbus and modern historians. New York: Praeger.