Magellan was the first person to think globally, to see the world as we see it today. To research his life, I immersed myself in the rigors and suffering and beauty and drama of this, the most famous sea voyage in history. The result is a tale largely based on neglected original sources. Magellan’s bold and remarkable feats of exploration gave us many scientific and geographic concepts that we continue to rely on. He and his men voyaged to the ends of the Earth, sailing over the edge of the known world, as they explored the limits of human endurance and the darkest recesses of the human soul. I personally visited and retraced the highlights of Magellan’s route — from the seething Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Sanlucar de Barrameda, Spain, through the Strait of Magellan, only five hundred miles above the Antarctic Circle, to his untimely death in the Philippines, and beyond.