Analysis: A Macat Analysis of Alfred W. Crosby's The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492

De: Joshua Specht, Etienne Stockland

Narrado por: Macat.com

Environmental factors shape our history just as much as - and sometimes more than - human factors. That's the premise of Alfred W. Crosby's 1972 work The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492, a key text in environmental history. While earlier scholars emphasized cultural and technological factors as defining the way our world developed, Crosby argues that nonhuman factors, such as the exchange of plants, animals, and microbes between the Old and New Worlds had more overall impact. "The most important changes brought on by the Columbian voyages were biological in nature," he says.

Crosby was one of the first historians to look at the importance of the spread of certain food crops and diseases in relation to the development of history, to show it was not simply political and social issues that counted. The Columbian Exchange introduces the idea that current human societies are also the product of a wider set of biological relationships, and need to be understood in these contexts.

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Extremely Repetitive

Majority of each chapter just repeats (sometimes word for word) statements made in previous chapters-the statements are also often vague and unhelpful. Not a lot of original analysis. Feels like the writer only read the blurb for the Columbian Exchange and restated it over several chapters. Would probably get more out a journal review.