Round the world

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto&rsquos Amerigo (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, Rs 1,100, 248pp) is less the story of &ldquothe man who gave his name to America,&rdquo as the subtitle would have it, than that of the times in which Amerigo Vespucci lived. The golden age of nautical exploration yielded not only Vespucci but also Columbus, Cabot, da Gama, Magellan and Cortez, men of varying degrees of perspicacity and a uniform stoutness of heart. Change a few names and dates around, and Amerigo could be the story of any one of them it is a template rather than a portrait of a specific personality.

Fernandez-Armesto is at his best when he dwells on the environment these men found themselves in &mdash the westward thrust in search of India, the hunger and greed for new conquests and riches, the jostle for patrons, the texts they relied upon, the instruments they used to navigate the seas. Europe, in the 15th century, had the distinct air of a frenzied gold rush to it, and Amerigo captures that perfectly.

But the book is notably silent on its titular figure, and admittedly Vespucci did not make it any easier. While Columbus wrote copiously, and often misleadingly, Vespucci was much less prolific. That may explain why Fernandez-Armesto is forced to rely far too heavily on, for example, Vespucci&rsquos old exercise book from school, or speculate on what he might have experienced.

Almost as if to disguise that poverty of source material, Fernandez-Armesto&rsquos ornate writing is frequently difficult to decipher. Even his modest thesis &mdash that Vespucci was a rogue who successfully rebranded himself as a worthy explorer and navigator &mdash lacks conviction. After all, if we are to believe him, many of Vespucci&rsquos contemporaries were similar charlatans he describes how Columbus&rsquo wild tales of his discoveries were ultimately discredited, so that he was &ldquoshipped home in chains&rdquo. He doesn&rsquot tell us what made Vespucci any different we&rsquore none the more knowledgeable, at the end of the book about the man who gave us one of the foremost proper nouns of our day.