1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus - Charles C. Mann
1493: How the Ecological Collision of Europe and the Americas Gave Rise to the Modern World - Charles C. Mann
Non-Fiction
Pages: 544
I thoroughly enjoyed Mann's other book on this general topic, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
, so I was quite keen to read this one. 1491 charted the history of America before Columbus' arrival and the dramatic changes that occured as a result. 1493 is in effect an expansion on a theory expounded in 1491, what is known as the Columbian Exchange. Whilst 1491 dwelt almost solely on the impact of Columbus' discovery of the America on the original inhabitants, 1493takes a global look at the impact of the Columbian Exchange, a worldwide translocation of people, plants, animals, pests and diseases as a result of the sudden contact between two previous disparate hemispheres.
Crops previously indigeonous to the Americas becames staples across the world - potatoes. maize and tomatoes in Europe, peanut and manioc in Africa, rubber to Southeast Asia. And that's not mentioning the introduction of malaria and yellow fever to the Americas, or animals such as the horse and cow, even the honey bee! The impact in some places is staggering. Even something as small as an earthworm can destroy millennia-old systems of agriculture in less than a decade.
It's quite sobering, in fact, just how much of an impact the introduction of one species to a new area can have on the native plants and animals. Dutch Elm Disease, for example, is a direct result of the Columbian Exchange. The potato blight is another. Grey squirrels in the British Isles driving out the native red population. Kudzu vine in America is another.
This is a fascinating read, as I've come to expect from Mann, to see just how much the world has shrunk and homogenised over time. Plants that seem such a fixture of particular countries, like tomatoes in Italy or potatoes in Ireland, are in fact 'exotic' imports. The potato in particular had an immense effect on the population in Europe, and yet one hardly reads about it in the history books. I would personally make this book required reading for schools and colleges. It's an immensely important study, and reading the impact of what Mann calls the Homogenocene Era from a global perspective makes you realise just how small our world is now and how inter-connected. And how, one way or the other, we will all rise and fall together.
Non-Fiction
Pages: 544
I thoroughly enjoyed Mann's other book on this general topic, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
, so I was quite keen to read this one. 1491 charted the history of America before Columbus' arrival and the dramatic changes that occured as a result. 1493 is in effect an expansion on a theory expounded in 1491, what is known as the Columbian Exchange. Whilst 1491 dwelt almost solely on the impact of Columbus' discovery of the America on the original inhabitants, 1493takes a global look at the impact of the Columbian Exchange, a worldwide translocation of people, plants, animals, pests and diseases as a result of the sudden contact between two previous disparate hemispheres.
Crops previously indigeonous to the Americas becames staples across the world - potatoes. maize and tomatoes in Europe, peanut and manioc in Africa, rubber to Southeast Asia. And that's not mentioning the introduction of malaria and yellow fever to the Americas, or animals such as the horse and cow, even the honey bee! The impact in some places is staggering. Even something as small as an earthworm can destroy millennia-old systems of agriculture in less than a decade.
It's quite sobering, in fact, just how much of an impact the introduction of one species to a new area can have on the native plants and animals. Dutch Elm Disease, for example, is a direct result of the Columbian Exchange. The potato blight is another. Grey squirrels in the British Isles driving out the native red population. Kudzu vine in America is another.
This is a fascinating read, as I've come to expect from Mann, to see just how much the world has shrunk and homogenised over time. Plants that seem such a fixture of particular countries, like tomatoes in Italy or potatoes in Ireland, are in fact 'exotic' imports. The potato in particular had an immense effect on the population in Europe, and yet one hardly reads about it in the history books. I would personally make this book required reading for schools and colleges. It's an immensely important study, and reading the impact of what Mann calls the Homogenocene Era from a global perspective makes you realise just how small our world is now and how inter-connected. And how, one way or the other, we will all rise and fall together.