1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created

About this book

From the author of 1491the best-selling study of the pre-Columbian Americasa deeply engaging new history of the most momentous biological event since the death of the dinosaurs. More than 200 million years ago geological forces split apart the continents. Isolated from each other the two halves of the world developed radically different suites of plants and animals. When Christopher Columbus set foot in the Americas he ended that separation at a stroke. Driven by the economic goal of establishing trade with China he accidentally set off an ecological convulsion as European vessels carried thousands of species to new homes across the oceans. The Columbian Exchange as researchers call it is the reason there are tomatoes in Italy oranges in Florida chocolates in Switzerland and chili peppers in Thailand. More important creatures the colonists knew nothing about hitched along for the ride. Earthworms mosquitoes and cockroaches; honeybees dandelions and African grasses; bacteria fungi and viruses; rats of every descriptionall of them rushed like eager tourists into lands that had never seen their like before changing lives and landscapes across the planet. Eight decades after Columbus a Spaniard named Legazpi succeeded where Columbus had failed. He sailed west to establish continual trade with China then the richest most powerful country in the world. In Manila a city Legazpi founded silver from the Americas mined by African and Indian slaves was sold to Asians in return for silk for Europeans. It was the first time that goods and people from every corner of the globe were connected in a single worldwide exchange. Much as Columbus created a new world biologically Legazpi and the Spanish empire he served created a new world economically. As Charles C. Mann shows the Columbian Exchange underlies much of subsequent human history. Presenting the latest research by ecologists anthropologists archaeologists and historians Mann shows how the creation of this worldwide network of ecological and economic exchange fostered the rise of Europe devastated imperial China convulsed Africa and for two centuries made Mexico Citywhere Asia Europe and the new frontier of the Americas dynamically interactedthe center of the world. In such encounters he uncovers the germ of todays fiercest political disputes from immigration to trade policy to culture wars. In 1493 Charles Mann gives us an eye-opening scientific interpretation of our past unequaled in its authority and fascination.