Morrison is, first and foremost, a fellow navigator. An admiral himself in the U.S. Navy in the 1930's, he has an acute knowledge of boats, charts, sailing instruments, crews, leadership on a ship, morale on a naval journey, nautical complications, ocean currents, wind patterns, storms and calms on shore and sea, and an endless array of other intricacies that only a fellow sailor would understand. Morrison is not just an outside observer for this biography, he is only separated from the experience by time, since he meticulously determined to reenact most of Columbus’s journeys in a sailing ship himself.

Secondly, Morrison is a Harvard professor of history. His use and understanding of primary sources and secondary sources (giving a greater understanding for the historiography of Columbus scholarship), is highly interesting. Most importantly his approach gains my trust as someone expecting to present the facts as best as they can be construed.