@article{1446663,
      recid = {1446663},
      author = {Regal, Brian,},
      title = {The battle over America's origin story : legends,  amateurs, and professional historiographers /},
      pages = {1 online resource (ix, 325 pages)},
      abstract = {This book examines the legends of who 'really' discovered  America. It argues that histories of America's origins were  always based less on empirical evidence and more on social,  political, and cultural wish fulfillment. Influenced by a  complex interplay of Nativist hatred of immigrants and  Aboriginal people, as well as distrust of academic  scholarship, these legends ebbed and flowed with changing  conditions in wider American society. The book focuses on  the actions of a collection of quirky, obsessed amateur  investigators who spent their lives trying to prove their  various theories by promoting Welsh princes, Vikings,  Chinese admirals, Neo-lithic Europeans, African explorers,  and others who they say arrived centuries before Columbus.  These myths acted as mitigating agencies for those who  embraced them. Along with recent scholarship, this book  makes extensive use of archival materials -- some of which  have never been employed before. It covers the period from  the sixteenth century to the present. It brings together  separate historiographic ideas to create a unified history  rather than focusing on one particular legend as most books  on the subject do. It shows how questions of who discovered  America helped create the field of historical scholarship  in this country. This book does not attempt to prove who  discovered America, rather it tells the story of those who  think they did. Brian Regal is Associate Professor of  history at Kean University, USA.},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/1446663},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99538-6},
}