1493

Charles Mann's sequel to 1491 — covering the ecological, economic, and human consequences of Columbus's voyages and the Columbian Exchange that followed.

The Columbian Exchange as the founding act of globalization: Mann's framework treats 1493 as the origin of the modern world — the mass transfer of crops (potatoes, maize, tomatoes to Europe; wheat, horses, cattle to Americas), diseases (smallpox, measles decimating indigenous populations), and people (African slave trade) that integrated the world's ecosystems for the first time. Silver from Potosí financing Ming China, potatoes causing the Irish demographic boom and subsequent Famine, earthworms transforming North American soil — the ecological consequences are as important as the political ones.