Author: Joshua Specht
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1351353004
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 71
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Book Description
One criticism of history is that historians all too often study it in isolation, failing to take advantage of models and evidence from scholars in other disciplines. This is not a charge that can be laid at the door of Alfred Crosby. His book The Columbian Exchange not only incorporates the results of wide reading in the hard sciences, anthropology and geography, but also stands as one of the foundation stones of the study of environmental history. In this sense, Crosby's defining work is undoubtedly a fine example of the critical thinking skill of creativity; it comes up with new connections that explain the European success in colonizing the New World more as the product of biological catastrophe (in the shape of the introduction of new diseases) than of the actions of men, and posits that the most important consequences were not political – the establishment of new empires – but cultural and culinary; the population of China tripled, for example, as the result of the introduction of new world crops. Few new hypotheses have proved as stimulating or influential.
Author: Joshua Specht
Publisher: Macat Library
ISBN: 9781912302475
Category : Environmental psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 83
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Book Description
Crosby's landmark 1972 work argues that environmental factors shape our history just as much as--and sometimes more than--human factors.
Author: Alfred W. Crosby
Publisher: Greenwood
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 298
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Book Description
"The best thing about this book is its overarching thesis, the concept of a Columbian exchange. This provocative device permits Crosby to shape a lot of familiar and seemingly unrelated data into a fresh synthesis. . . . The implications of this interplay between novel biological and social forces are fascinating." Journal of American History.
Author: Alfred W. Crosby
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107569877
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 409
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Book Description
A fascinating study of the important role of biology in European expansion, from 900 to 1900.
Author: Alfred W. Crosby
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317469852
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232
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Book Description
Alfred Crosby almost alone redirected the attention of historians to ecological issues that were important precisely because they were global. In doing so, he answered those who believed that world history had become impossible as a consequence of the post-war proliferation of new historical specialities, including not only ecological history but also new social histories, areas studies, histories of mentalities and popular cultures, and studies of minorities, majorities, and ethnic groups. In the introduction to this volume, Professor Crosby recounts an intellectual path to ecological history that might stand as a rationale for world history in general. He simply decided to study the most pervasive and important aspects of human experience. By focusing on human universals like death and disease, his studies highlight the epidemic rather than the epiphenomenal.
Author: Alfred W. Crosby
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521639903
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 268
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Book Description
This 1997 book discusses the shift to quantitative perception which made modern science, technology, business practice and bureaucracy possible.
Author: Charles C. Mann
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0307265722
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 561
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Book Description
More than 200 million years ago, geological forces split apart the continents. Isolated from each other, the two halves of the world developed totally different suites of plants and animals. Columbus's voyages brought them back together--and marked the beginning of an extraordinary exchange of flora and fauna between Eurasia and the Americas.
Author: Alfred W. Crosby
Publisher: American Historical Assoc
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 50
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Book Description
The 500th anniversary of the Columbian discovery of America is upon us, and with it the obligation to assess existing interpretations of the significance of the voyage and establishment of permanent links between the Old and New Worlds. The traditional, or bardic, version of the Columbian voyages and their consequences was the product of narrative historians who wrote about the American past in ways consonant both with the documentary record then available and with the ethnocentrism of their fellow white citizens of the New World. Though popular, it is deceptive because it takes a selective view of history, reinforces Euro-American ethnocentrism, and confirms premises and approaches clearly obsolete in the late 20th century. The analytic interpretation takes a more scientific, less romantic view of the voyages, their motives and consequences. These historians open themselves to geology, climatology, biology, epidemiology, and other fields. They are scientific in their research and in attempts to limit bias. Examples of historical interpretation from each school of thought are presented. The Columbian influence on the Old and New Worlds is assessed; and intellectual, economic, nutritional, and demographic effects are discussed. Finally, the legacy of the Columbian exchange is reviewed in terms of its effects on world population and ethnic composition. (GEA)
Author: Jerry H. Bentley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521761628
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
The era from 1400 to 1800 saw intense biological, commercial, and cultural exchanges, and the creation of global connections on an unprecedented scale. Divided into two books, Volume 6 of the Cambridge World History series considers these critical transformations. The first book examines the material and political foundations of the era, including global considerations of the environment, disease, technology, and cities, along with regional studies of empires in the eastern and western hemispheres, crossroads areas such as the Indian Ocean, Central Asia, and the Caribbean, and sites of competition and conflict, including Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Mediterranean. The second book focuses on patterns of change, examining the expansion of Christianity and Islam, migrations, warfare, and other topics on a global scale, and offering insightful detailed analyses of the Columbian exchange, slavery, silver, trade, entrepreneurs, Asian religions, legal encounters, plantation economies, early industrialism, and the writing of history.
Author: Luis Martínez-Fernández
Publisher: University Press of Florida
ISBN: 1683401379
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248
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Book Description
Florida Book Awards, Bronze Medal for General Nonfiction International Latino Book Awards, First Place, Best History Book (English) Scholarly and popular attention tends to focus heavily on Cuba’s recent history. Key to the New World is the first comprehensive history of early colonial Cuba written in English, and fills the gap in our knowledge of the island before 1700.
