World Agriculture Before and After 1492: Legacy of the Columbian Exchange

The year 2022 is the 50th anniversary of Alfred Crosby’s celebrated book — The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492. In the book, Crosby was the first to discuss the impact that the Spanish and Portuguese colonial period had on world agriculture and human culture. How the crops of the world became homogenized, and how an indigenous culture was destroyed by disease after Columbus landed. His landmark study broke new ground in its broad conceptualization of the Atl...