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| Titre : | 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created |
| Auteurs : | Charles Mann |
| Type de document : | document électronique |
| Editeur : | [S.l.] : Knopf, 2011 |
| ISBN/ISSN/EAN : | 978-0-307-59672-7 |
| Résumé : |
"### Amazon.com Review **Guest Reviewer: Nathaniel Philbrick on *1493* by Charles C. Mann** _**Nathaniel Philbrick** is the author of the *New York Times *bestsellers *The Last Stand*; *In the Heart of the Sea*, which won the National Book Award; *Sea of Glory*, winner of the Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt Naval History Prize; and *Mayflower*, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in history and one of the *New York Times'* ten best books of the year. He has lived on Nantucket since 1986._ IÔÇÖm a big fan of Charles MannÔÇÖs previous book *1491*, in which he provides a sweeping and provocative examination of North and South America prior to the arrival of Christopher Columbus. ItÔÇÖs exhaustively researched but so wonderfully written that itÔÇÖs anything but exhausting to read. With his follow-up, *1493*, Mann has taken it to a new, truly global level. Building on the groundbreaking work of Alfred Crosby (author of *The Columbian Exchange* and, IÔÇÖm proud to say, a fellow Nantucketer), Mann has written nothing less than the story of our world: how a planet of what were once several autonomous continents is quickly becoming a single, ÔÇ£globalizedÔÇØ entity. Mann not only talked to countless scientists and researchers; he visited the places he writes about, and as a consequence, the book has a marvelously wide-ranging yet personal feel as we follow Mann from one far-flung corner of the world to the next. And always, the prose is masterful. In telling the improbable story of how Spanish and Chinese cultures collided in the Philippines in the sixteenth century, he takes us to the island of Mindoro whose ÔÇ£southern coast consists of a number of small bays, one next to another like tooth marks in an apple.ÔÇØ We learn how the spread of malaria, the potato, tobacco, guano, rubber plants, and sugar cane have disrupted and convulsed the planet and will continue to do so until we are finally living on one integrated or at least close-to-integrated Earth. Whether or not the human instigators of all this remarkable change will survive the process they helped to initiate more than five hundred years ago remains, Mann suggests in this monumental and revelatory book, an open question. **Timeline for *1493*** **200,000,000 B.C.:** Geological forces begin to break up the worldÔÇÖs single giant continent, Pangaea, forever separating the hemispheres. After this, Eurasia and the Americas develop completely different suites of plants and animals. **1493 A.D.:** Columbus sails on second voyage, establishing the first consequential European settlement in the Americas. Without intending to, he ends the long separation of the hemispheresÔÇöand sets off the ecological convulsion known as the Columbian Exchange. **1518:** In the first environmental calamity of the modern era, accidentally imported African scale insects in Hispaniola lead to an explosion of fire ants. Spaniards flee the ant-infested island in droves; colonists in Santo Domingo hold procession in honor of St. Saturninus, praying for his aid against the insect plague. **1545:** Spaniards discover the worldÔÇÖs biggest silver strike in Bolivia. In the next century, the worldÔÇÖs supply of this precious metal will more than double, giving Europe an economic edge that will help it colonize Africa, Asia and the Americas. **1549:** Initial appearance of tobaccoÔÇöthe addictive American drug that becomes the first global commodity crazeÔÇöin China. That same year, Hern├ín Cort├®s inaugurates the human part of the Columbian Exchange by signing the first contract to import large numbers of Africans to the American mainland. **1571:** Miguel L├│pez de Legazpi colonizes Manila and establishes continual trade with ChinaÔÇöColumbusÔÇÖs life-long, never-fulfilled dream. Knitting the entire inhabited planet into a single web of trade, LegazpiÔÇÖs actions are the beginning of todayÔÇÖs economic globalization. **~1615:** Earthworms come to northern North America in English ship ballast. During the next three centuries, they will re-engineer forests from Ohio Valley to Hudson Bay. **1630-60:** The gush of American silver finally causes its price to collapse, setting off a the worldÔÇÖs first global economic calamity. **1644:** Collapse of Ming dynasty. Long struggle between remaining Ming in south and incoming Qing dynasty in north leads the latter to forcibly evacuate most of the southern coast; millions of dispossessed people pour into the mountains, where they grow maize and sweet potatoes, American crops first smuggled into China from Manila and other European bases. **1775:** FranceÔÇÖs Flour War, set off by high bread prices, persuades King Louis XVI to allow the pioneering nutritional chemist Antoine-Augustin Parmentier to stage a series of publicity stunts to persuade farmers to grow potatoes, a distrusted foreign species from Peru. ParmentierÔÇÖs PR is so successful that broad swathes of northern Europe are soon covered with a monoculture of potatoes. **1781:** BritainÔÇÖs ÔÇ£southern strategyÔÇØ pushes Gen. CornwallisÔÇÖs army into North AmericaÔÇÖs malaria zone, an area dominated by malaria parasites introduced from Europe and Africa. Defeated by malaria, the British army surrenders to a general it never fought: George Washington. This ends the Revolutionary War. **1845:** EuropeÔÇÖs potato monoculture, which is unlike anything ever seen in Peru, turns out to be especially vulnerable to another Peruvian import, the potato blight. Ravaging the continent from Russia to Ireland, the blight causes a famine that kills an estimated two million people, half of them in Ireland. **~1867:** L├®opold Trouvelot, French amateur entomologist, smuggles gypsy moths to Medford, Mass., hoping to breed them with native silk-producing moths to produce a more robust silk-producer. Their almost immediate escape sets off an invasion that continues today. Trouvelot hurriedly returns to France before the dimensions of the problem can be known. **1880-1912:** Industrializing nations, desperate for the elastic belts, pliable gaskets and the aborbent tires needed by steam engines and vehicles, buy every scrap of rubber they can get from the AmazonÔÇÖs rubber trees, the sole source of high-quality latex. The ensuing rubber boom collapses after an Englishman smuggles rubber trees out of Brazil. Soon much of southeast Asia is covered with this foreign tree. **1979:** The golden apple snail is sent from Brazil to Taiwan to launch an escargot industry there. It escapes, proliferates, and becomes a major menace to the islandÔÇÖs rice crop. ### Review ÔÇ£A muscular, densely documented follow-up [to_ *MannÔÇÖs *1491] *. . . Like its predecessor,* 1493 _runs to more than 400 pages, but it moves at a gallop . . . As a historian Mann should be admired not just for his broad scope and restless intelligence but for his biological senstivity. At every point of his tale he keeps foremost in his mind the effect of humansÔÇÖ activities on the broader environment they inhabit.ÔÇØ ┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á -Alfred W. Crosby, *The Wall Street Journal* *┬á* ÔÇ£In the wake of his groundbreaking book_ 1491_ Charles Mann has once again produced a brilliant and riveting work that will forever change the way we see the world. Mann shows how the ecological collision of Europe and the Americas transformed virtually every aspect of human history. Beautifully written, and packed with startling research, *1493* is a monumental achievement."" ┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á -David Grann, author of *The Lost City of Z* *┬á* ÔÇ£Spirited . . . One thing is indisputable: Mann is definitely global in his outlook and tribal in his thinking . . . MannÔÇÖs taxonomy of the ecological, political, religious, economic, anthropological and mystical melds together in an intriguing whole cloth.ÔÇØ ┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á -Jonathan E. Lazarus, *The* [Newark] *Star-Ledger* *┬á* ÔÇ£Fascinating . . . Convincing . . . A spellbinding account of how an unplanned collision of unfamiliar animals, vegetables, minerals and diseases produced unforeseen wealth, misery, social upheaval and the modern world.ÔÇØ ┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á -Starred review,_ Kirkus_ ÔÇ£A landmark book . . . Entrancingly provocative, *1493* bristles with illuminations, insights and surprises.ÔÇØ ┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á -John McFarland, *Shelf Awareness* ÔÇ£A fascinating survey . . . A lucid historical panorama thatÔÇÖs studded with entertaining studies of Chinese pirate fleets, courtly tobacco rituals, and the bloody feud between Jamestown colonists and the Indians who fed and fought them, to name a few. Brilliantly assembling colorful details into big-picture insights, MannÔÇÖs fresh challenge to Eurocentric histories puts interdependence at the origin of modernity.ÔÇØ ┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á -Starred review,_ Publishers Weekly_ ÔÇ£In *1491 *Charles Mann brilliantly described the Americas on the eve of ColumbusÔÇÖs voyage. Now in *1493* he tells how the world was changed forever by the movement of foods, metals, plants, people and diseases between the ÔÇÿNew WorldÔÇÖ and both Europe and China. His book is readable and well-written, based on his usual broad research, travels and interviews. A fascinating and important topic, admirably told.ÔÇØ ┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á -John Hemming, author of *Tree of Rivers* ÔÇ£Fascinating . . . Engaging and well-written . . . Information and insight abound on every page. This dazzling display of erudition, theory and insight will help readers to view history in a fresh way.ÔÇØ┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á ┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á┬á -Roger Bishop, *BookPage* *┬á* ÔÇ£Charles Mann expertly shows how the complex, interconnected ecological and economic consequences of the European discovery of the Americas shaped many unexpected aspects of the modern worl |
