In which John Green teaches you about the changes wrought by contact between the Old World and the New. John does this by exploring the totally awesome history book The Columbian Exchange by Alfred Cosby, Jr. After Columbus discovered the Americas, European conquerors, traders, and settlers brought all manner of changes to the formerly isolated continents. Disease and invasive plant and animal species remade the New World, usually in negative ways. While native people, plants, and animals were being displaced in the Americas, the rest of the world was benefitting from American imports, esp (read the full story at youtube.com or comments at digg) |