The Discovery of America; With some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest

Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1892. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. Good. Volume I xxxvi, 516, [2] pages and Volume II. xxiv, 631, [5]. Illustrations. Maps (some folding). Footnotes. Index. Red cloth binding. John Fiske (March 30, 1842 - July 4, 1901) was an American philosopher and historian. John Fiske was born Edmund Fiske Green and later assumed the name of his maternal great-grandfather, John Fiske. He graduated from Harvard College in 1863 and from Harvard Law School in 1865. His career as author began in 1861, with an article on "Mr. Buckle's Fallacies" published in the National Quarterly Review. After that, he was a frequent contributor to American and British periodicals. From 1869 to 1871, he was university lecturer on philosophy at Harvard, in 1870 instructor in history there, and assistant librarian 1872-1879. Beginning in 1881, he lectured annually on American history at Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, and beginning in 1884 held a professorship of American history at that institution, but continued to make his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He lectured on American history at University College London in 1879, and at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in 1880. He gave many hundreds of lectures, chiefly upon American history, in the principal cities of the United States and Great Britain. Fiske was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1884. The largest part of his life was devoted to the study of history. This masterful, monumental work addresses ancient America, the Pre-Columbian period, European voyages, the Search for the Indies, the New World, the Conquest of Mexico, the Conquest of Peru, Las Casas, Colonization.