Stefan Zweig 
Magellan 
A Man and his Deed

With the age of voyages of discovery in the 15th century, the curtain of history slowly came down on the late Middle Ages. Portuguese and Spanish seafarers set out to remeasure the dimensions of the earth. Numerous spices and fruits, which we would hardly be able to do without today, found their way to Europe for the first time. Columbus discovered America in 1492 on his quest for India. Six years later, it was left to Vasco da Gama to travel through the sea route to India sought by Columbus on the eastern route around Africa. Finally, in 1519, the Portuguese Magellan, commissioned by the Spanish crown, attempted the boldest act in the history of seafaring: the first circumnavigation of the world. It was the result of his quest for a western sea route to the riches of Southeast Asia and India. In brilliant language, peppered with historical facts, the writer Stefan Zweig pays tribute to Magellan’s seafaring achievements and gives the listener an insight into a time full of dramatic upheavals. While Magellan was fighting the treacherous seas of the oceans, the Reformation was already getting under way in Europe.

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Stefan Zweig (28. November 1881 – 22. Februar 1942) war ein österreichischer Schriftsteller, Dramatiker, Journalist und Biograf. Auf dem Höhepunkt seiner literarischen Karriere, in den 1920er und 1930er Jahren, war er einer der meistübersetzten und beliebtesten Schriftsteller der Welt. Zweig wuchs in Wien, Österreich-Ungarn, auf. Er schrieb historische Studien über berühmte Literaten wie Honoré de Balzac, Charles Dickens und Fyodor Dostoevsky und über entscheidende historische Ereignisse in Sternstunden der Menschheit. Er verfasste unter anderem Biografien über Joseph Fouché (1929), Mary Stuart (1935) und Marie Antoinette.