Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle Reading App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Apple
Android
Windows Phone
Android
To get the free app, enter your email address or mobile phone number.
Featured History Books "Coal & Empire" weaves together pivotal moments in history by linking coal and steam to the realms of foreign relations, politics, and more. Learn more | See related books
$20.42
FREE Shipping on orders over $35.
Only 9 left in stock (more on the way).
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Gift-wrap available.
Frequently Bought Together
{"currencyCode":"USD","itemData":[{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":20.42,"ASIN":"0307265722","moqNum":1,"isPreorder":0},{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":26.15,"ASIN":"140004006X","moqNum":1,"isPreorder":0},{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":20.23,"ASIN":"0393061310","moqNum":1,"isPreorder":0}],"shippingId":"0307265722::%2FiD%2BbDQ3UKFn%2FVLb44iwZIn5qy7oKAokCCN3JvbCMc42q78ja9pAHu7qsVjoYIs3IhIcu4%2FtgG7UUaGNHJIqvU4nQooaM6Wbcrmm7Fro1GRWdFGVeEs%2B0A%3D%3D,140004006X::V3dAHw9uv%2F5iAcFsSFCTRLKjjBjkcJlT390m9NwzJGz6vZpMUMzLWd4r62eSSy4D99jTrGUrvO6mEJvTGlgnHDrzlTGu5cVXIyKp0CHYTa4%3D,0393061310::Y%2FCVjMlvn%2FYcQTgQIaLR71ShtoTfi7oZFHIIqZa3%2FcNEAnONokw0qUn5C0zltKWKPSzuxsM4eueUUlU9U0AS4hAxQ%2BvxLzID%2BpB2JXwsOV8mUUN2WzqNwQ%3D%3D","sprites":{"addToWishlist":["wl_one","wl_two","wl_three"],"addToCart":["s_addToCart","s_addBothToCart","s_add3ToCart"],"preorder":["s_preorderThis","s_preorderBoth","s_preorderAll3"]},"shippingDetails":{"xz":"availability","xy":"availability","yz":"same","xyz":"availability"},"tags":["x","y","z","w"],"strings":{"showDetails":"Show details","differentAvailabilityAll":"Some of these items ship sooner than the others.","addToWishlist":["Add to Wish List","Add both to Wish List","Add all three to Wish List","Add all four to Wish List"],"shippingError":"An error occurred, please try again","differentAvailability":"One of these items ships sooner than the other.","preorder":["Pre-order this item","Pre-order both items","Pre-order all three items","Pre-order all four items"],"addToCart":["Add to Cart","Add both to Cart","Add all three to Cart","Add all four to Cart"],"showDetailsDefault":"Show availability and shipping details","priceLabel":["Price:","Price for both:","Price for all three:","Price For All Four:"],"hideDetailsDefault":"Hide availability and shipping details","hideDetails":"Hide details"}}
This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.
Best Books of the Month
Want to know our Editors' picks for the best books of the month? Browse Best Books of the Month, featuring our favorite new books in more than a dozen categories.
Product Details
Hardcover: 560 pages
Publisher: Knopf; First Edition edition (August 9, 2011)
Charles Mann has a knack for making the details of history into fascinating reading, and this book did, indeed, keep me up reading past my bedtime. The book combines the results of his prodigious reading, his own travels and personal experiences, and his conversations with some of the leading scholars in the field.
On the heels of his earlier success (1491), Mann now turns to the post-Columbian world, and shows how Columbus's voyages brought about what Mann calls (rather inelegantly, perhaps) the "Homogenocene Age." We're all living in one world now, like it or not, and he explores how it got that way. The book doesn't attempt to be exhaustive, but goes into detail about some of the more interesting aspects of what scholars are now calling the "Columbian Exchange": a massive swap of plants, microorganisms, and animals (including humans). The period after Columbus brought about some of the most radical (and often surprising) changes in the nature of the world.
In some ways, the book recalls James Burkes' Connections television series. We see the unintended consequences and often unexpected results of seemingly minor events. The 1707 Union of Scotland and England turns out to be, quite possibly, partly the result of Panamanian mosquitoes, for example. And I learned a lot. We all know about the Puritans landing in New England, but I had no idea they also founded a colony off the coast of Nicaragua!
3 Comments
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
106 of 122 people found the following review helpful
This is a very interesting book and a good follow up to 1491. The problem is, I purchased the Kindle version for $5.00 less than the hard copy version. This was a mistake. Pay the extra five bucks. Although I love my Kindle and have read about 40 books on it so far, because of the number of maps and illustrations central to the understanding and enjoyment of 1493, this Kindle version has been a disappointment. The maps are almost completely unreadable on the Kindle even if expanded to full screen. The photographs are unusable as well. Hopefully the new Kindle Fire will be better at displaying this type of content. As of now, don't waste your money on a Kindle version of this book.1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created
5 Comments
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
78 of 93 people found the following review helpful
Charles Mann knows how to write. He also knows how to make history interesting and come alive.
The title "1493" refers to all that time since Christopher Columbus, for whom Mann has had a fascination with, first discovered the new world. With that new discovery came changes and exchanges that have transferred the world. The great trade routes that developed from the new American continent to Europe and Asia--The Columbian Exchange-- created both beneficial and devastating results and altered what people ate around the world.
The changes most of us learned about in high school social studies classes: new diseases were introduced into the indigenous peoples of the Americas and many died. Columbus came looking for gold and silver but found also sugar, corn, tobacco, beans, tomatoes and so much more. Coffee, chocolate, rubber all followed. The Spaniards in turn brought in the horse and sheep and we all know the legend of the horse in the American West.
Little did Columbus realize, Mann states, that he and the men who followed to America began what was known as globalization. Coveted items were used as trading items for other equally coveted items. Wars were fought over these items because every monarchy wanted to have the most power over the control of earth's resources, and this thirst for power spilled into Asia as well.
There may not be too much new to learn from Mann's book. I had been aware of the "Columbian Exchange" but terms such as"Homogenocene" and the dawn of globalization is new to me. Mann then uses his writing and research skills to create detailed and interesting chapters to show how the movement of animals, plants and humans have created new species, varieties and that this movement was not always bad.Read more ›
2 Comments
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
47 of 56 people found the following review helpful
Worms and parasites, slaves and masters, greed and commerce, tobacco and guano - all have radically shaped today's world, and continue to do so. The Columbian Exchange united, both for better and for worse, this earth in ways that Columbus could never have dreamed.
The author's writing is well organized, researched, illustrated, and annotated. Given that, it still could have been boring but it wasn't. Charles Mann kept me entertained and interested through every word, remarkable considering how much information he was able to impart in the roughly 400 pages of text. I knew bits and pieces of this story, but never the bigger picture as he was able to show me. He did this without becoming pedantic, condescending, or proselytizing. I highly recommend this book to anyone at all interested in the history and future of this planet.
Comment
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
21 of 24 people found the following review helpful
I thought 1491, Mann's earlier book on pre-Columbian America, was fabulous. This one has a lot of very interesting information but it doesn't quite come together as well as the original.
The discussion of the immediate impact of European exploration covers some very familiar ground (importing European diseases, sending tobacco to Europe, etc.) and a lot of information that was completely new to me (the transformative impact on the Americas of earthworms and bees, for example). I've been a longtime student of US history and much of what he wrote (the broad-ranging impacts of the importation of malaria, for example) was new to me.
He branches out well beyond the immediate trans-Atlantic Columbian Exchange, which is where he gets in a bit of trouble. A major segment of the book is on the ecological and economic disaster in China following the beginnings of the importation of Spanish silver and American agricultural products (sweet potatoes and tobacco, most notably). While some of this discussion is interesting, it also seems too long and somewhat disorganized.
He totally loses focus when he gets to the importation of the potato into Europe. He does a good job of showing how the potato transformed nutrition and it seems well within the book's stated topic (the worldwide impact of the Columbian Exchange). But then his discussion of the great Irish potato famine wanders here, there, and everywhere. It's really more about English cultural imperialism and the replacement of tried and true peasant agriculture with "scientific agriculture" (monoculture, intense use of fertilizer, etc.) By the time he gets to the potato beetle in the American midwest, the book has become a general discussion of problems caused by industrial agriculture and world trade.Read more ›
Comment
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more
This item: 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created
![]({"http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/510d-TlHyfL._SX335_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg":[337,499],"http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/510d-TlHyfL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg":[234,346]})
