1493

Uncovering the New World Columbus Created

By: Charles C. Mann

Narrated by: Robertson Dean

Length: 17 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

From the author of 1491—the best-selling study of the pre-Columbian Americas—a deeply engaging new history of the most momentous biological event since the death of the dinosaurs.

More than 200 million years ago, geological forces split apart the continents. Isolated from each other, the two halves of the world developed radically different suites of plants and animals. When Christopher Columbus set foot in the Americas, he ended that separation at a stroke. Driven by the economic goal of establishing trade with China, he accidentally set off an ecological convulsion as European vessels carried thousands of species to new homes across the oceans.

The Columbian Exchange, as researchers call it, is the reason there are tomatoes in Italy, oranges in Florida, chocolates in Switzerland, and chili peppers in Thailand. More important, creatures the colonists knew nothing about hitched along for the ride. Earthworms, mosquitoes, and cockroaches; honeybees, dandelions, and African grasses; bacteria, fungi, and viruses; rats of every description—all of them rushed like eager tourists into lands that had never seen their like before, changing lives and landscapes across the planet.

Eight decades after Columbus, a Spaniard named Legazpi succeeded where Columbus had failed. He sailed west to establish continual trade with China, then the richest, most powerful country in the world. In Manila, a city Legazpi founded, silver from the Americas, mined by African and Indian slaves, was sold to Asians in return for silk for Europeans. It was the first time that goods and people from every corner of the globe were connected in a single worldwide exchange. Much as Columbus created a new world biologically, Legazpi and the Spanish empire he served created a new world economically.

As Charles C. Mann shows, the Columbian Exchange underlies much of subsequent human history. Presenting the latest research by ecologists, anthropologists, archaeologists, and historians, Mann shows how the creation of this worldwide network of ecological and economic exchange fostered the rise of Europe, devastated imperial China, convulsed Africa, and for two centuries made Mexico City—where Asia, Europe, and the new frontier of the Americas dynamically interacted—the center of the world. In such encounters, he uncovers the germ of today’s fiercest political disputes, from immigration to trade policy to culture wars.

In 1493, Charles Mann gives us an eye-opening scientific interpretation of our past, unequaled in its authority and fascination.

©2011 Charles C. Mann (P)2011 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“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 world. This is an example of the best kind of history book: one that changes the way you look at the world, even as it informs and entertains.” (Tom Standage, author of A History of the World in Six Glasses)

“In 1491 Charles Mann brilliantly described the Americas on the eve of Columbus’s voyage. Now in 1493 he tells how the world was changed forever by the movement of foods, metals, plants, people and diseases between the ‘New World’ 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.” (John Hemming, author of Tree of Rivers)

“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." (David Grann, author of The Lost City of Z)

Fascinating Mindbending History.

If you could sum up 1493 in three words, what would they be?

Changes your Worldview. Here is a lot of the dark matter that our school history texts never mentioned. Forget kings and statesmen; here are the real players: the lowly worm, the tiny bacteria, the odd plant, the parasite and a whole cast of greedy, stupid, and heroic humans all playing their gigantic parts in interweaving threads of change, growth and destruction. You will never view history the same after this. And you will talk about it until your friends either kill you or read it themselves.

What other book might you compare 1493 to and why?

1491- the same astonishing kind of information looking backwards from 1492. What was really here in the American Continent.

The top history book of the decade

Where does 1493 rank among all the audiobooks you???ve listened to so far?

This is the best book I've read all year. I've recomended it to friends and family and re-listened several times. We live in exciting times, and the fields of history and anthropology are constantly being challenged and changed as new discoveries are made. IMHO, Guns Germs and Steel set the gold standard for world history books. However, for the reasons I just mentioned, its important to keep up with emerging discoveries and new knowledge. I loved Mann's last book, 1491, for this reason. This book dramatically exceeds the previous work, no mean feat. For anyone interested in history, this is a MUST READ. Couldn't recomend more.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

The chapters about colonial U.S. history were real eye-openers.

Any additional comments?

Not one to miss!

Fantastic. Best book I've read all year

Really a remarkable book. Well written and very interesting delivery of information that could have been boring. Very thought provoking work about how the world changed after Columbus landed. The book touches on how disease shaped (mainly) the new world, how Spanish gold changed Europe and China (and the Philippines), new world crops fed (and the failed to feed) Europe, how those same crops changed food production in China, and how rubber is currently changing the far East. I will never think of history the same way. I can't say enough about this book. If you are at all interested in history, get it and listen now.

Great premise and first half, weak follow-through

The thesis of this book is great and the first portion which focuses on ecology is really riveting. I get the sense that the author traveled down too many cultural and historical side roads and then ran out of time to tie his thesis into a nice, complete package for us towards the end. Starts off strong, wobbles, and then topples over like a top.

fasinating new perspective on history

Jamestown like you never thought of it before, a sweeping look at how plants, animals and people change the world and make history. If school taught history as well as this book does i would have loved the class instead of dreading it.

Learning 1493

A modern updating of Crosby's classic The Columbian Exchange, Mann traces the biological, epidemiological, and agricultural impact of trade between Europe, Asia and the America's after 1493.

1493 is a book for fans of Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma and Morris' Why the West Rules -- for Now.

If you like your history to be big, the scope to be wide, but to be tied into how you eat and pay your way in the world, then 1493 is probably perfect.

The last time I learned about the Columbian Exchange was in high school. Learning dates and the sequence of events, and getting familiar with maps and geography, was central to my high school history experience. As a history major in college the emphasis on maps, dates, and events diminished, as the work in primary sources came to the forefront.

I can't imagine 1493 will be much required in college history courses, as this type of historical narrative for a popular audience (written by a journalist and not a historian) probably does not conform to how postsecondary history is taught. This is perhaps too bad, as I just did not know most of the history of Columbian Exchange described in 1493.

Learning how to "do history", to work like historians, is probably not a bad thing. But most history undergraduate students will not go on to graduate school. A book like 1493, a book with strong opinions and lots of dates, geography, people and events, might be an example of the kind of works we should make room for in our history courses.

Moments of revelation in the Homogenocene

I have listened to a lot of history books on Audible, and I thought this would mostly cover ground I had heard before (in Guns, Germs, and Steel, for example). I was wrong.

To be fair, not all of the historical incidents themselves were entirely new, but the book managed to bring them together in a way that was a revelation. In one powerful section on Jamestown, for example, you see how alien the landscape was for Europeans arriving in Virginia - they couldn't even recognize tended fields, because they looked so different than European fields. And, in return, by bringing earthworms, draft animals, and malaria, the Europeans create an entirely different ecosystem themselves which destroys or merges with the American one. The idea of settlers transforming a landscape so utterly feels like a science fiction trope, but the historical account is excellent, here, as it is throughout the book.

Similarly fascinating are accounts of the way that Spanish silver destabilized China, the potato's role in European history, and the attempts to start a Confederate state in the Amazon. The history is not always pleasant, but it terrifically described. Along the way, Mann makes an argument that, since 1493, we are living in a new world, the Homogenocene, shaped by humans and globalization.

There are only a couple of minor caveats. First, the author works hard to make sure his views on the Colombian Exchange are asserted, and he overreaches occasionally in trying to tie much of world history to the Exchange. This is forgivable, but can make some sections feel like a bit of a stretch. Also, the reading is solid, but not terrific.

Reading reviews by historians, this seems to be well-regarded work, even though it wasn't by a historian. It is definitely gripping and occasionally revelatory. I recommend it very highly to those who like their history sweeping.

Interesting but limited

What I liked best about this book was the narrative thread, and the way the author (who I think is a journalist, not a historian) developed his 'arguments' (really, his 'story') with an eye to keeping the reader interested.

What I liked least was that he spent very little time justifying his positions, providing sources, or describing any uncertainty about facts or interpretations. My own background on this period is limited, but some of what is baldly presented as 'fact' here, even I know is controversial (e.g., China's wealth in the 16th century, China's naval power). If you are considering reading this book, you should understand it is not a scholarly work, but is instead a journalist's attempt to synthesize and popularize scholarly work.

And Random House -- 'King' dynasty? Really? Can't you give your narrators a pronunciation guide?

This narrator kept me listening

Pesos in Germany, the mini ice age, Chinese barbers and Samurai soldiers in Brazil... oh my. I thought that I knew enough about Columbus but there is so much more to this story.

Certain parts of this book are more factually dense than other parts and this may seem boring at first but, as you listen these facts will be revisited and explained in vivid detail.

If you are curious about world history, global economics, potatoes and plastic then add this book to your list.

Best book I've read in the last year

I'm a junky for this kind of stuff, and after reading 1491 a few years back, I instantly bought 1493 when I saw it. Charles C Mann has an incredible knack for finding facts that are not only fascinating, but tell a story extremely well.

While 1491 focused in the Americas before Columbus, 1493 focuses on "the Columbian exchange". Basically the beginning of globalization. The connecting of two worlds and the profound impact it had on both hemispheres. Full of well done analysis, and enough amazing factoids to impress your friends at parties, this book is pure gold and Spanish silver, with Inca potatoes, and tomatoes on top, wrapped in a maize tortilla, seasoned with some Peruvian seabird guano. Delicious!

Top notch narration, too.

A startling new view of world history

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I have a PhD in history yet the ideas expressed in this work are entirely new to me and challenge much of my previous understanding of the history of globalization. Not only are these ideas plausible but they also force us to rethink much of what we thought we knew. The author Charles Mann builds upon the works of others to synthesize a very accessible and insightful book. I found that narration was also of a very high standard and complimented the work well.

What other book might you compare 1493 to, and why?

Guns, Germs and Steel. Jared Diamond.

One of the best

The world was changed forever the day Christopher Colombus set foot on the Easternmost tip of the Americas in 1492. From then on, a continent that had been naturally separated by land from the rest of the world for millennia were re-joined by mankind. I cannot speak highly enough about this book's utter brilliance, not only as a phenomenal book from a purely objective standpoint, but the icing on the cake was the subjectively enjoyable aspects, which I concede are not universally seen as positives: they include its incredible sweep, its vast scope, its voracious appetite for devouring subjects, throwing something new at you all the time and exploring them from start to finish. Each of the fascinating explorations of the "Colombian Exchange"'s highly variable localising effects reveals a stream of scientific, geographical, sociological, political, economic and essentially human curiosities and insights, all given a knowing historical context to their delivery. I listened, intently enraptured, to the stories of the late Ming Chinese and how silver and sweet potato changed everything; how an English bio-pirate stole thousands of seeds from Brazil resulting in a global industry vital to the modern world today; how a poisonous mountain root that could only be digested safely if eaten with frozen soil eventually fed most of Europe, how all of these exchanges were transformative, devastating, brilliant and inseparable from the world as we know it. A wonderfully exhilarating listen.

Very interesting

Very good book, lots of depth & detail.
Not usually my thing, but I enjoyed it

Amazing history of the world after the arrival of Columbus

Mann writes a beautiful history of how the arrival of Columbus in the Americas marks the opening salvo of globalization. He describes how Europeans changes the land in the americas, how the americas changed the lands in Europe and Asia and how the Columbian exchange brought governments to their knees and give rise to new movements even today