1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created by Charles C. Mann
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This follow up to [b:1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus|39020|1491 New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus|Charles C. Mann|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327865228s/39020.jpg|38742] has more relevance and is arguably an important read to understand currently agricultural and even cultrual aspects of the "homogecene" era prompted by the Columbian Exchange. Resonating with Pollan's [b:The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World|13839|The Botany of Desire A Plant's-Eye View of the World|Michael Pollan|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320488029s/13839.jpg|908398], Mann recounts the history of potatoes from Andean tuber to edible pesticide. Other amazing chapters of this microhistory is the Asian exchange with the galleon trade leading to a 16th Century Chinatown in Mexico City and Mexican silver en masse relocated to China.
I particularly enjoyed and got a lot out of the theme that this late 15th Century activity started a wave of globalism that ramped up quickly and we still feel today. Two examples of that were ex-Confederate refugee rubber plantation founders in Sao Paulo, Brazile (http://www.patsabin.com/lowcountry/confederados.htm) and the failed Darien scheme of Scottish colonists in Panama.
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