The Columbian Exchange and the Beginning of the World

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The third section connects the Columbian Exchange and the two important revolutions of the late 17th-19th centuries: The Agricultural Revolution, as well as the Industrial Revolution. Mann focuses on two species that were introduced to new geographical areas during these revolutions. The first species is the potato, transplanted from the Andes Mountains to Europe. The second species is the rubber tree, which originated in Brazil and was taken to South and Southeast Asia. Both of the revolutions supported the rise of the West as a controlling power, and both revolutions would have been significantly different had the Columbian Exchange not been around to spread new ideas, techniques and species of plants and animals.

Lastly, the fourth section returns to the theme from section one, centering on the Columbian Exchange across the Atlantic Ocean. Section four’s primary focus is the most notable and “consequential exchange of all: the slave trade.” (Mann, 2011. p.xxviii.) Mann explains that around 1700, about 90% of the people who crossed the Atlantic Ocean were African captives being transported for slave labor. Due to this large shift in human populations, demographically, many landscapes in the Americas were largely dominated by Africans, Native Americans and Afro-Native Americans. The interaction of these peoples, under the noses of the Europeans, is a more recent discovery in human heritage. Mann explains that so many groups of peoples were involved in the ripples of migrations set off by Christopher Columbus that the world saw the rise of the first multilingual, multiethnic metropolis: Mexico City. Within Mexico City, cultural mixing happened from the top of the social ladder all the way to the bottom. At the top, Spanish conquistadors married the peoples they had conquered, and at the bottom, Spanish barbers grumbled about low-paid immigrant barbers from China. Mexico City was essentially, the first crossroads of the Atlantic Columbian Exchange and the Pacific Columbian Exchange; however, both exchanges still went on unchanged even with a unification point.

Mann concludes 1493 by looking at the magnitude of the effects of the Columbian Exchange. When truly delving into what drove globalization in the past, it was not “heroic navigators, brilliant inventors or empires acquired by dint of technological and institutional superiority” as Mann recalls from his younger years. However, the past was a “cosmopolitan place, driven by ecology and economics.” (Mann, 2001. p. xxviii.) At this point in time, globalization has been elevating the world for nearly five centuries. Globalization has also been responsible for the ecological seizures, and suffering and political distress from those seizures. Mann also points out the opulence that comes from this view of the past. He believes looking at the past as he portrays it in 1493 is a reminder that every place has played some part in the story of humanity, and is embedded in the larger, unimaginably multifaceted progress of life on Earth.