Charles C. Mann

Uncovering the New World Columbus Created

1493

uncovering the new world Columbus created

Nick Gracilla

Few could disagree that the speed and breadth of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 is enabled by global economies and international travel. With economies suffering—and our own wallets—it’s easy to imagine the problems we face are new: globalization gone too far and run amuck, the pandemic as an expression of mother nature “fighting back” and “restoring balance.” Many find the situation so unbelievable, they turn to conspiracy theories for comfort and clarity, and a sense of belonging. 

Better, instead, to turn to Mann’s 1493. It is a rollercoaster recounting of the impact of what is now called the Columbian Exchange: globalization version 1.0, the worldwide network of economic, cultural, environmental, and epidemiological exchange, which ranges from Portugal and Spain through Peru and the east coast of the states through to the Philippines, China, and south Asia. 

You’ll be enthralled at the impact of the Peruvian potato, which saves millions in Europe from starvation towards the end of the little ice age, and inspires ecological and geological collapse in China, as vast territories are leveled for sweet potato crops, even as monoculture planting (not a thing in Peru) causes blight to spread across Europe. You’ll be immersed in the first great cities of the world, from 1200s to 1500s, across China, its gateway, Manila; Mexico City, and Peru, largely the source of silver China desperately needed and which eventually collapses the Spanish crown due to oversupply. And all along, the unintended consequences — earthworms brought from England to the states, yellow fever and malaria from Africa to the Americas, and smallpox to native populations everywhere. 

And, the human stories — or, more typically, the inhuman stories, of African slavery driven by malarial resistant labor in the states to supply Europe with tabacco and sugar, a taste fairly newly acquired from the Silk Road; of ongoing wars inspired by power, greed, and religions, of the complex delineation of races and classes created by the Spanish in Mexico, as native populations, the Spanish, Africans, and Asians mixed together. 

It’s the kind of book that lays bare this fact: globalization is not new. A retreat to our own backyard garden is in fact a celebration of this, with eggplants from South Asia, carrots from Europe, bell peppers and corn from Mesoamerica. We are, already, throughly interdependent, enmeshed, and global, and we have been for nearly 800 years. Given that — and given our sorry histories — we can start to ask: how should we act, in ways beneficial to our ecologies, our economics, and ourselves as both regional and global citizens? Again, Mann points towards interesting case studies: in the Amazon, sorting out land ownership and economies built on healthy and diverse ecologies of plants from around the world. In Manila, with regional farmers growing a diversity of rice and crops from every corner of the earth. 

On the whole, a fun and fascinating read. Highly recommended.

Dana Kraft

This is why I read history books - lots of interesting stuff that I never knew and is explicitly different than what I've been taught, all of which changes my mindset about a historical and current events.

Loved it!

Jeni Enjaian

I really enjoyed this book. I loved reading all the nuances on how life on so many different levels changed at the start of "homogenocene," the unofficial term for this era of history so altered and transformed by human hands. 
As much as I loved this book and the stories that Mann told, those same stories kept me from giving this book five stars. Each time a new chapter started, a new story started but other than that I did not see any sort of organization to these chapters. Admittedly, I forgot what I read in the preface where Mann laid out a purported organization. That being said, the organization that Mann laid out in the preface could not easily be discerned as one read.
I still highly recommend this book. Fascinating on so many levels.

Andrew Ireland

Reveals how the voyages of Columbus reintroduced plants and animals that had been separated millions of years earlier, documenting how the ensuing exchange of flora and fauna between Eurasia and the Americas fostered a European rise, decimated imperial China and rendered Manila and Mexico City the center of the world for two centuries. Reprint.

1493 Uncovering the New World Columbus Created

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