The very word “exchange” lets us know that the encounter was two-way - and sometimes more. Mann’s book, a successor to his best-selling “1491,” takes a god’s-eye view of the world as it began to change, rapidly and inexorably, in the face of the wealth a restless Europe discovered in the Americas - and, at about the same time, in Asia and Africa.įor all the talk we hear today about globalization, that process began with the onset of what historians call the Columbian Exchange half a millennium ago. It all sounds familiar, and terribly modern - and that’s no accident. The rich worked out tax exemptions and retreated behind the walls of their villas, while the small middle class and peasantry shouldered the burden, the latter struggling to grow food in the face of a worsening climate. The wealth from the newfound silver mines of Potosi didn’t begin to cover the bill, so the Spanish crown borrowed from foreign powers and banks, mortgaging the country’s future and amassing vast debts. Mann in his new book, “ 1493,” “threw Spain’s elite into delirium.” The country’s rulers launched wars against the mighty Ottoman Empire and other Muslim powers, to say nothing of fellow Christians elsewhere in Europe. And that prize, writes journalist and historian Charles C. In the rush to claim the Americas following Christopher Columbus’s arrival in 1492, Spain wound up with the winning Powerball number. We’ve all heard stories about lottery winners who squander their newfound wealth, go on misguided adventures, become addicted to expensive substances, and wind up poorer and unhappier than they ever were before fortune found them.

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