uncovering the new world columbus created

'These diseases exploded like chains of firecrackers across the landscape.' 'When you start adding up everything that we know, it becomes apparent that there was just an enormous catastrophe that took place,' says Mann. But it wasn't until the 1960s that modern historians realized the scale of the human death toll in the years following Columbus' landing, says Mann. It was the worst demographic disaster in history.'Įarly accounts and diaries mentioned the epidemics in their accounts of life in the 1500s and 1600s. The result was to wipe out between two-thirds and 90 percent of the people in the Americas. 'When the Europeans came over, it was as if all the deaths over the millennium caused by these diseases were compressed into 150 years in the Americas. exist in the Americas because they didn't have any domesticated animals,' says Mann. 'All of the great diseases from smallpox to measles to influenza. Mann is a journalist and contributing editor for Atlantic Monthly and Science. There's absolutely nothing in there from New England.'Ĭharles C. 'There's absolutely nothing in my garden that originated within 1,000 miles of my house,' he says.

He tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that almost nothing we consider locally grown was, in fact, native to the Americas. Mann writes about the changed world after Columbus' voyage in 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, a sequel to his 2006 pre-Columbian history, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. 'And this underlies a huge amount of history learned in schools: the Industrial Revolution, the Agricultural Revolution, the rise of the West - all of these are tied up in what's been called the 'Columbian exchange.' ' 'It was a tremendous ecological convulsion - the greatest event in the history of life since the death of the dinosaurs,' says Mann. When Columbus crossed the Atlantic in 1492, his journey prompted the exchange of not only information but also food, animals, insects, plants and viruses between the continents. 'In fourteen-hundred-and-ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue,' goes the old elementary school rhyme.īut it was Columbus' activities in the years that followed, says writer Charles C. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title 1493 Subtitle Uncovering the New World Columbus Created Author Charles C.

Uncovering the new world columbus created