1493

1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created

By Charles Mann
5 stars
Review By: Nichole 

 

We all know that in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.  And hopefully we remember his plight of begging for money and trying to finance the trip to prove he could sail to East Asia for spices by heading west, and instead found the islands and continents comprising Central and northern South America.  We attribute a lot to Columbus’ trips across the ocean, among them the diseases that killed the indigenous peoples, the beginning of the spice trade routes by sea, and of course, African slaves being brought to the New World.  But there’s so much more to know!

The sweet potato was both savior and devil in China when it was secretly smuggled in by the Spaniards.  First it single-handedly pulled the country out of a terrible famine, and then led to deforestation and erosion in the raised farmlands where it was grown, which caused flooding that killed millions, as many people as it likely saved from the famine.

Hispaniola became almost uninhabitable when Europeans settled on the island and brought with their cherished banana trees, which the native fire ants found to be even more delectable than the people, and their own population exploded so much that humans found it difficult to survive there.

My favorite of all oddities I learned from this book: earthworms are an invasive species.  Two years ago I visited the Boundary Waters of Minnesota and in order to fish there, if you bring worms as bait, you are required to bring them back out with you (even the dead ones) because there are no worms in the northern Minnesota forests, and they want to keep it that way.  This baffled me, but it wasn’t until I read this book that I understood.  Worms were brought here and immediately began their natural job of breaking down the debris and undergrowth of a forest, so instead of shed leaves and pine needles breaking down naturally, lending their nutrients back to the soil, the earthworms were eating the debris instead and only some of the nutrients were ending up back in the soil.  Also, creatures that lived in the undergrowth no longer could live there.  Saplings that found protection from the undergrowth couldn’t take root and survive to become big, strong trees.  The very composition of the forests changed!  Areas like northern Minnesota and Ontario, which still do not have earthworms, have rich soil, varied forests, strong conifers, broad-leafed trees, and thick undergrowth carpeting the forest floors.  You will not find such forests in the areas where colonization took place early in European settlement, and that’s largely due to earthworms.

Post-Columbian Earth wasn’t just environmental, it was political, economical, and medical as well.  Opening up the door to new civilizations and creating a global economy changed this planet in ways we were never prepared for, and Mr. Mann lets us know that until we all become one, these types of exchanges will create the same types of devastation for each segregated environment, in ways we can’t even predict.  I highly recommend this book, from a scientific, historical and human perspective.