Thirty years ago, Alfred Crosby published a small work that illuminated a simple point, that the most important
changes brought on by the voyages of Columbus were not social or political, but biological in nature. The book
told the story of how 1492 sparked the movement of organisms, both large and small, in both directions across the
Atlantic. This "Columbian exchange," between the Old World and the New, changed the history of our planet
drastically and forever.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Foreword
Preface to the 2003 Edition
Foreword
Preface to the 1972 Edition
1 The Contrasts 3
2 Conquistador y Pestilencia 35
3 Old World Plants and Animals in the New World 64
4 The Early History of Syphilis: A Reappraisal 122
5 New World Foods and Old World Demography 165
6 The Columbian Exchange Continues 208
Bibliography 222
Bibliography to the 2003 Edition 261
Index
