Why do two continents bear Amerigo Vespucci's name instead of Columbus's, despite Columbus reaching the New World first? Stefan Zweig solved this historical mystery in his 1942 final work through archival detective work.
The answer: A German cartographer named Martin Waldseemüller, working in 1507, read an account claiming Vespucci reached the mainland before Columbus. Based on this likely forged document, Waldseemüller labeled the continents "America." The name spread across Europe in thousands of copies before the error was recognized—by then, too late to correct.
Columbus died believing he'd reached Asia, bitter and unknown. Vespucci, a competent but unremarkable navigator, became immortalized through accident. The greatest geographical discovery got named for the wrong person through a chain of misunderstandings.
For Zweig, writing from Brazilian exile as Europe destroyed itself, this epitomized history's absurdity: fame bears no relationship to achievement. Chance and error shape what we remember. Rather than psychological biography, Zweig investigates how misinformation spreads and becomes permanent fact—detective story as much as history.
Zweig combines brilliant research with literary flair, showing how Vespucci's self-promotional letters circulated widely while Columbus's accurate but less sensational accounts languished. The story reveals profound lessons: genuine achievements go unrecognized; errors, once established, are nearly impossible to correct; those who publicize discoveries matter as much as those who make them.
Written before his 1942 suicide, the book reflects Zweig's despair about witnessing truth become irrelevant when power controls information—a meditation haunted by his own exile and the era's destruction.
