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

ISBN-13: 9783031155222 / Angielski / Twarda / 2022 / 150 str.

James F. Hancock

Opis

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 Atlantic exchange.Building on what Crosby so succinctly and brilliantly presented, the main goal of this new work is to present the depth of information that has emerged since "The Columbian Exchange" and to discuss more fully the development of crops and agriculture before and after the Iberian contact. It follows the journey of crops and livestock in the Old and New Worlds and end’s with their distribution in today’s world.

Spis treści

Chapter 1. Origins of world crops and livestock

·       Peopling of the world

·       Origins of agriculture

·       Transcontinental dispersal of Near East crops

·       Spread of Agriculture across the Mediterranean Basin

·       Indian Ocean dispersals

·       Dispersal of New World crops

·       Evolution of farming methods

·       World agriculture systems in 1492

 

Chapter 2. Evolution of European agriculture

·       Background

·       Food and diet

·       Mixed farming

·       Open field system and the manor

·       Muslim green revolution in Spain (Al Andalus)

·       Spread of the Mediterranean agrosystem

 

Chapter 3. Agriculture in the Americas in the 16^th century

·       Background

·       Rural economies in the Americas in 1492

·       Food and agriculture of Aztecs

·       Food and agriculture of Incas

·      Food and agriculture of Maya

·       Food and agriculture of Taíno

·       Food and agriculture of Tupi-Guardi

·       Food and agriculture of North America

 

Chapter 4. The Spanish conquest of the Americas

·       Background - Who were the conquerors?

·       The initial Spanish conquest of the Americas

·       Spread of the colonies

·       Organization of Spanish America

·       The Spanish colonial economy

·       The Great Dying

·       Effects of Columbian exchange on world population

 

Chapter 5. Crop and livestock introductions into Spanish America

·       Background

·       Early crop and livestock introductions to New Spain

·       Early crop and livestock introductions to Peru

·       Plantation crops introduced to Spanish America

 

Chapter 6.  Homogenization of agriculture in Spanish America

·       Background

·       Colonial farms in the Caribbean

·       Colonial farms in Mexico and Peru

·       Old World livestock in the New World

·       Amerindian farms after the conquest

 

Chapter 7. Portuguese colonization of Brazil

·       The Portuguese colonization strategy

·       Evolution of the Brazilian economy

·       Slavery in the Americas

·       Crop and Livestock introductions to Brazil

·       Spread of sugar plantations to Caribbean

·       Out from Africa

·       Crop assemblage of Brazilian slaves

·       African rice and banana become staples

 

Chapter 8. European diaspora in the 17^th and 18^th centuries

·       Portuguese find route to the Indian Ocean

·       India Run

·       Spanish find route to New Spain

·       Manila Galleons

·       The Dutch and English establish an East Asian Trading Network

·       European colonization of Eastern North America

o   Dutch colonies

o   Swedish colonies

o   French colonies

o   English colonies

 

Chapter 9. New World crops into the Old World

·       Temperate

o   Maize

o   Common bean

o   Chili pepper

o   Cotton

o   Cucurbits

o   Potato

o   Pumpkin and squash

o   Tomato

o   Other (Amaranth, quinoa, avocado, cocoa, sisal, sunflower)

·       Tropical crops

o   Manioc

o   Sweet potato

o   Peanut

o   Tobacco

o   Other (Pineapple, guava, papaya, rubber)

 

Chapter 10. Five hundred years after the encounter

·       Overall rate of acceptance of New and Old World crops

·       Influence of the Columbian Exchange on the peopling of the world

·      Impact of American foods on population growth in Europe

·       Crops of the world yesterday and today

 

O autorze

James F. Hancock is a University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University. He received his Ph.D. in Genetics at the University of California, Davis. After a short stint in the Biology Department at the University of South Carolina, he moved to Michigan State University (MSU) as an assistant professor of Horticulture, where he was for over thirty years, being promoted to Professor in 1986. He was the Director of the Plant Breeding and Genetics Program at MSU from 2004 to 2009. The emphasis of his research has been on the breeding and genetics of blueberries and strawberries, and he has published prodigiously in these areas. His previous books have been The Strawberry; The Blueberry (with Jorge Retamales); Plantation Crops: Power and Plunder, Evolution and Exploitation; and Plant Evolution and the Origin of Crop Species. He has also edited Temperate Fruit Crop Genetics: Germplasm to Genomics, and Environmental Biosafety (with Rebecca Grumet, Karim Maredia and Cholani Weebadde). He is fellow of the American Society for Horticultural Science, Wilder medal recipient of the American Pomological Society, a former Fulbright Fellow to Chile, and received the Technology Transfer Achievement Award from the Innovation Center of MSU for his blueberry cultivar releases.