[lbo-talk] mass dementia

[Chuck Grimes]

> I only learned recently that Columbus set sail only weeks after the edict 
> expelling Jews from Spain was issued.
>
>
> http://www.franciscan-archive.org/columbus/opera/excerpts.html
>
> So after having expelled the Jews from your dominions, your Highnesses, in 
> the same month of January, ordered me to proceed with a sufficient 
> armament to the said regions of India,

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Yes, yes. This history is amazingly interesting to me. Here's the link to 
Tomas de Torquemada, Grand Inquisitor. Check out the idea that this mofo was 
Queen Isabella's confessor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom%C3%A1s_de_Torquemada

He later had books in Arabic burned which must have looked like the devil's 
handwriting. Classic Arabic calligraphy is amazingly sensual especially in 
comparison to the block rectitude of Latin.

I think there are interesting economics going on. These voyages were 
investiment banking ventures. The Italian cities had lost their taste for 
this kind of leap into the void, which is why Columbus went to Spain. And as 
the money moved, so moved the dominance of which European power got in on 
the looting. So it went from Spain to the Dutch and next France and England.

Mike Perelman mentions some of this banking history in his web talk today.

CG