With monuments honoring Christopher Columbus regularly being defaced and destroyed, it’s clear this year’s Columbus Day (Oct. 9) celebrations will elicit strong debate over the explorer’s legacy. But by looking at Columbus in the greater context of the history of civilizations, one can see that much of today’s anti-Columbian fury is either misguided or part of a blind political agenda seeking to demonize early European activity in the New World.

First off, let’s consider the matter of European disease transmission, principally smallpox, which is estimated by some to have killed 70 percent to 80 percent of the population native to the Americas.