1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created

“1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created,” was written by Charles C. Mann in 2011 and published by Alfred A. Knopf on August 9, 2011. 1493 has a length of 560 pages, with four parts: the Introduction, part one, Atlantic Journeys; part two, Pacific Journeys; part three, Europe in the World; and Part four, Africa in the World.

1493 is a nonfiction book about the global effects of the Columbian Exchange after Columbus first landed in America, then leading to the globalization of our world currently. 1493 is a book written following a previous book of Mann’s, “1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus.

” In 1491, Mann talks about the global homogenization of agricultural species such as diseases and tools carried in by the migration and transportation that led to this new world. 1491 also talks about modern global food production and its reliance on regional crops and livestock.

Charles C. Mann, who was born in 1955 in the United States, was an American journalist and author, who specialized in scientific topics. Mann graduated from Amherst College and won the Lennan Literary Fellowship award, as well as in 2005, the National Academies Communication Award for best book of the year for his book “1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus.” Mann is a three-time National Magazine Award finalist and has won an award from the American Bar Association, the Margaret Sanger Foundation, the American Institutes of Physics, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, along with many more. Other books that Mann has written is, “Noah’s Choice: The Future of Endangered Species” and “The Second Creation.” Mann lives in Massachusetts with his wife and their children.

“1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created,” is a more than 500 page book that explains the chain of events that produced fruits, gardens and nuts, as well as brings together stories explaining why our world is the way it is today and how it came to be. Mann’s book starts out in a garden and then ends in one as well. The first garden begins in Mann’s personal garden in Massachusetts; the second garden, ends the novel with a Filipino family in Bulalacao. Aside from the beginning garden and the ending garden taking place half way around the world from each other, the two grow many of the same plants, with neither containing any of which are native to their particular place. In 1493, Mann tells his readers that it is “the hallmark of the ecological era we live in: the “Homogenocene,” the Age of Homogeneity” (Mann).

1493 begins where Mann’s previous “1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus,” leaves off. In 1491, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans were almost closed barriers, in which America, Europe and Asia might as well not exist on the same planet. Columbus’s arrival in the Caribbean changed everything that following year. Columbus’s arrival also brought plants, animals, microbes and cultures around the world, where tomatoes were brought to Massachusetts, and corn came to the Philippines.

1493 brought more than just “Ecological Imperialism.” Mann argues the bringing into new territory as he suggests that by understanding what Crosby called “the Columbian Exchange,” the transfer of plants, animals, germs and people across continents over the last 500 years, can make sense of globalization. Mann’s lesson in 1943, is that “from the outset globalization brought both enormous economic gains and ecological and social tumult that threatened to offset those gains.”

1493 is associated for an older audience, or an audience who enjoys history and geography. “1493: Uncovering The New World Columbus Created,” is a very informative novel, but also consists of a lot of historical and scientific facts that are more difficult for someone who is not associated with geography or history to understand as much as it is with someone who is associated with subjects as such. This novel has a lot of value in what it speaks about, being a nonfictional novel, differentiating but also associating scientific history and geography from country to country across the world.

1493 gives off many examples of scientific literary meanings when it talks about the Columbian Exchange, being the reason there are tomatoes in Italy, oranges in the United States, chocolate in Switzerland, and chili peppers in Thailand. Tobacco is also read about in in part one of 1493, in The Tabacco Coast. Tobacco from the Caribbean fascinating the wealthy of Mecca, Madras, Madrid and Manila. This also shows literary meanings from how tobacco used to be used and distributed to how it is used and distributed now. In the book 1493, Charles Mann gives readers an eye-opening scientific explanation of our past.

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