Paradoxes and misnomers.

• Author: Galeano, Eduardo
• Position: The Upside-Down World - Column

History is an errant paradox. It is the contradictions that keep its legs moving.

When they were evicted from the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve moved to Africa, not Paris.

Some time later, when their children had embarked on their ways in the world, writing was invented. In Iraq, not Texas.

Algebra was invented in Iraq too, by Mohammed al-Khwarizmi, 1,200 years ago, and the word "algorithm" was derived from his name.

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Names don't usually coincide with what they describe. In the British Museum, to give one example, the sculptures of the Parthenon are called the Elgin Marbles, though they are really the marbles of Fidias. Elgin is the name of the Englishman who sold them to the museum.

The three novelties that made the European Renaissance possible--the compass, gunpowder, and the printing press--were invented by the Chinese, who also invented almost everything that Europe reinvented.

In 1493, the Vatican gave America to Spain and black Africa to Portugal "so that the barbaric nations can be reduced to the Catholic faith." At the time, America had fifteen times more inhabitants than Spain, and black Africa 100 times the population of Portugal.

Just as the Pope had ordered, the barbaric nations were reduced, to say the least.

Tenochtitlan, the center of the Aztec empire, was all water. Hernán Cortés demolished the city, stone by stone, and used the rubble to block the canals through which 200,000 canoes used to move. This was the first water war in America. Today, Tenochtitlan is called Mexico City. And where water once flowed, now automobiles throng.

The tallest monument of Argentina was erected in honor of General Roca, who exterminated the Indians of Patagonia in the nineteenth century.

The largest avenue in Uruguay bears the name of General Rivera, who exterminated the last Charrua Indians in the nineteenth century.

John Locke, renowned philosopher of liberty, was a shareholder in the Royal Africa Company, which bought and sold slaves.

At the dawn of the eighteenth century, the first of the Bourbons of Spain, Philip V, inaugurated his new throne by signing a contract with his cousin the king of France that allowed the Guinea Company to sell blacks in America. Each king would receive a 25 percent cut of the profits. The names of some of the ships that carried this cargo: Voltaire, Rousseau, Jesus, Hope, Equality , and Friendship .

In the name of freedom, equality, and fraternity, the French Revolution proclaimed in 1793...