Crosby, who put forth the Columbian Exchange theory. As an academic work, 1493 is a gloss, an update and a popularization of the work of historian and geographer Alfred W. Mann convinces the reader that the process of economic globalization (which some consider the path back to paradise and others predict will be the death of us all) is both older and newer than we thought. Mann’s thesis is radical: These changes altered the planet’s ecological shape, and also its political shape, as European societies became dominant over China, previously the most developed economy in the world. The earlier book asked us to rethink most of what we thought we knew about pre-Columbian ecosystems the new one asks us to consider changes brought by the transport of non-native species around the world. (The reason that the English walked so easily through the Virginian understory was that it was anything but virgin: it had been worked for generations by the natives.) Now, in 1493, Mann lays out the ecological and economic interplay of the European and, importantly, African arrival in America Mann’s epic ambition spans continents, themes and five centuries of history.Īs in 1491, Mann focuses on ecology, but in 1493, there is also much to be said about economics. Mann’s 1 493, which is about some of the people, animals and plants ignored by “world history.” Mann’s previous book, 1491, drew attention to Native American societies before the European conquest. I wish it did, because the word would elegantly describe Charles C. In the discipline of history, “understory” doesn’t mean anything. In the science of forestry, the understory is the mix of seedlings and saplings, shrubs and herbs and all the smaller trees that grow happily in the shade of the bigger trees or wait patiently for wind or fire to expose them to the sun. What you see in your mind’s eye is probably something like the images that open Terrence Malick’s 2005 film The New World: a virgin forest of stately trees bathed in that certain slant of light. Close your eyes and picture this: You’re staring from the deck of a small ship at the land now known as Virginia. Mann ’76 writes the stories of things: the Virginia forests, tobacco, rubber, silk. Like the authors of such books as Cod, Salt and Banana, Charles C.

1491 and 1493 by charles c mann