Page 41 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol Two

390 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

and strength in weeding and harvesting than children
could provide. It produced food faster than most crops Columbus,
and provided high amounts of calories. It soon became a
common secondary crop from Shanxi in the northwest to Christopher
Yunnan in the southwest and eventually a primary crop in (1451–1506)
several inland provinces. Spanish explorer
Peanuts, growing in China at least as early as 1538,
have always been considered a novelty food in the West, hristopher Columbus is a tabula rasa, a blank slate
but became a common item in Chinese meals. Peanuts Cupon which scholars of European overseas expan-
provide plenty of calories and oil, and as they grow sion inscribe their opinions about the significance of the
enrich the soil with nitrogen. man and the expansion. For some Columbus is a roman-
According to the demographic historian Ho Ping-ti, tic figure, the last medieval crusader, whereas for others
“During the last two centuries when rice culture was grad- he is the first modern man, the man who first sloughed
ually approaching its limit, and encountering the law of off the chains that had limited human development.
diminishing returns, the various dry land food crops People once saw him as initiating the civilizing and
introduced from America have contributed most to the Christianizing process in the Americas, but now people
increase in national food production and have made pos- condemn him for initiating slavery and genocide. His
sible a continual growth in population” (Ho 1959, 191– greatest claim to fame, however, is that he initiated the
192). That statement applies as well to most of human- process that revealed the true nature of the earth’s surface
ity in the Eastern Hemisphere. and demonstrated that the seas are not an obstacle to
worldwide communication but rather highways that can
Alfred W. Crosby
link all humankind.
See also Biological Exchanges All of these perceptions of Columbus mask the real
man, obscuring his endeavors under a blanket of myths
that reduces a complex individual to a stick figure. The
Further Reading difficulties involved in presenting the real Columbus are
Cook, N. D. (1998). Born to die: Disease and New World conquest, 1492– not, however, solely the responsibility of modern schol-
1650. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Crosby,A.W. (1986). Ecological imperialism:The biological expansion of arship.The first person to generate a mythical Columbus
Europe, 900–1900. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. was the explorer himself.
Crosby, A. W. (1994). Germs, seeds, and animals. Armonk, NY: M. E.
Sharpe. Columbus’s early life is especially murky, a fact that has
Crosby, A. W. (2003). The Columbian exchange: Biological and cultural given rise to a number of imaginative theories about his
consequences of 1492. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. origins.The best evidence, however, indicates that he was
Denevan, W. M. (1992). The native population of the Americas in 1492
(2nd ed). Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. born in Genoa, Italy, around 1451, the son of a weaver
Ho, P. (1959). Studies on the population of China, 1368–1953. Cam- and his wife. Initially trained to practice his father’s
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kinealy, C. (1995) The great calamity: The Irish famine, 1845–1852. trade, Columbus went to sea, as Genoese men often did.
Boulder, CO: Roberts Rinehart Publishers. He sailed much of the Mediterranean before moving to
Kiple, K. F. (Ed.). (1993). The Cambridge world history of human disease. Lisbon, Portugal, where his older brother, Bartholomew,
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Mazumdar, S. (1999).The impact of New World food crops on the diet was a chart maker.
and economy of India and China, 1600–1900. In R. Grew (Ed.), Lisbon was the goal for Genoese seamen, merchants,
Food in global history (pp. 58–78). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Mintz, S.W. (1985). Sweetness and power:The place of sugar in modern and bankers who were seeking new routes to the East to
history. New York: Penguin Books. replace the colonies along the Black Sea that had once