1493
Ratings35
Average rating4.2
A rich, vast, tomey tome. But not as tomey as I feared! Half the book is appendices, bibliography, and so on. Phew. I was worried it would take half a year to finish, but not so!
The basic premise: with the “discovery” of the New World via Columbus, the wheels of economic - and ecological - globalization were set in motion. And what wheels they are!
We follow the trades of silver, rubber, guano (!), and slaves, and how these trades really drove the great mish-mashing of the world: culturally, politically, economically, everythingly! Mann argues that Columbus's smash-up of Old and New Worlds brought the global ecosystem together for the first time since Pangea. He has some great stories to tell, and a great eye for (human) detail.
The book is strongest when he focuses on the stories from 16th-19th century Latin America. I had no idea about any of it, as my understanding of the whole New World business is so completely Eurocentric. Mann did a lot to enrich that history: the maroon communities, the Chinese dentists in 17th century Mexico City, the Chincha Islands off the coast of Peru with their mountains of guano (and its role in fertilizing (!) modern agriculture in Europe).
Just as good as “1491” - really opened my eyes to how connected the world was even back then. My main takeaway from this book is that the early settlement of North America was a tiny little sideshow compared to the HUGE settlements and general movement of people and goods taking place between Europe, South America, and Asia. There is also more in this book about how some of that early interaction (mainly agricultural practices) continues to have negative effects, centuries later. Not a happy read, but really interesting.
