Alfred W Crosby: 7 books

People of European descent form the bulk of the population in most of the temperate zones of the world - North America, Australia and New Zealand. The military successes of European imperialism are easy to explain; in many cases they were a matter of firearms against spears. But as Alfred W. Crosby...

Thirty years ago, Alfred Crosby published a small work that illuminated a simple point, that the most important changes brought on by the voyages of Columbus were not social or political, but biological in nature. The book told the story of how 1492 sparked the movement of organisms, both large and...

People of European descent form the bulk of the population in most of the temperate zones of the world - North America, Australia and New Zealand. The military successes of European imperialism are easy to explain; in many cases they were a matter of firearms against spears. But, as Alfred Crosby...

Between August 1918 and March 1919 the Spanish influenza spread worldwide, claiming over 25 million lives - more people than perished in the fighting of the First World War. It proved fatal to at least a half-million Americans. Yet, the Spanish flu pandemic is largely forgotten today. In this vivid...

Western Europeans were among the first, if not the first, to invent mechanical clocks, geometrically precise maps, double-entry bookkeeping, precise algebraic and musical notations, and perspective painting. By the sixteenth century more people were thinking quantitatively in western Europe than in...

This book is the first comprehensive introduction to contemporary Turkmenistan in English.

從我讀到這本書的那一刻起，歷史對我而言，就再也不大一樣了。——美國名史學家麥克尼爾 ◎原著三十週年紀念修訂新版 1492年，哥倫布航向美洲，地球上的生命就此改變…… 1492年之後美洲的原生植物，馬鈴薯、玉米成為世界人口的日常生活飲食，世界人口快速成長。但自哥倫布後，歐洲帶到美洲大陸的天花等疾病，使無法抵抗的美洲住民人口急速銳減。而來自歐洲的物種在生態競爭下也造成許多美洲物種滅絕。 在哥倫布與大航海時代之前，冰河期的結束將美洲大陸與世界上其他陸地完全阻隔開來，獨立發展形成各自不同的生態系。1492年以降的大交換打破了這層隔絕，各式物種交互移動，永遠改變了人類歷史的走向，更對兩邊的自然生態造成不可抹滅的影響。 1972年，《哥倫布大交換》第一版於美國出版，「哥倫布大交換」一詞成為生態史研究中的專業術語。這本40年前由克羅斯比所寫的書，開啟了生態史這個全新的研究領域，成為回顧近代人類發展歷程時的全新角度。並啟發《槍炮、病菌與鋼鐵》。就如同作者克羅斯比所言：「這個星球上的生命，從此徹底並永遠地改變了...