In elementary school we learned that Christopher Columbus landed on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola in 1492, stage one in his plan to find a western route to China. In this landmark book, Charles Mann (1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus) refreshes, corrects and amplifies our long-ago memories of those lessons. Columbus's voyage was about more than an alternative route--it changed the world; here, Mann focuses on the ecological and economic changes.
Trade in tobacco and silver was the spur for the "Columbia Exchange," yet it involved more: large domesticated animals arrived in North America; common nightcrawlers, red march worms and bees, not seen on the American continent since the Ice Age, arrived in Virginia; mosquitoes that carried malaria and yellow fever were brought in from Africa; and so on. As scientist Cindy Hale told Mann, "Four centuries ago, we launched this gigantic unplanned ecological experiment. We have no idea what the long-term consequences will be."
Though we can't predict how the experiment will end, Mann's stories of what we have learned so far will rivet readers. Consider his statement: "The industrial revolution depends on three raw materials: steel, fossil fuels, and rubber. If one member of that triad suddenly vanished, it would have unwelcome effect."
1493 bristles with insights like this. African sweet potatoes averted a food crisis in China, introduction of potatoes from the Andes had the same effect in Europe, and something called the "Duffy antigen" played a critical role in the slave trade. Mann portrays Mexico City as "a troubled, teeming, polyglot metropolis with an opulent center and seething ethnic neighborhoods... that is struggling to fend off ecological disaster" and sees it as the world's first 21st-century city, although it was already that way in 1642. Setting sail for China, Columbus started it all. --John McFarland, author