Columbus, Before and After 1492

choi

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(1) Alfred W Crosby, The Herald of a New Creation; In the century following Columbus's voyage, most migrants to the New World were African, not European. Wall Street Journal, Aug 9, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904888304576472692264364406.html
(book review on Charles C Mann, 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus created. Knopf, 2011)

Note:
(a) "Genoa's most famous son" refers to Christopher Columbus (1451-1506; born in Genoa, at modern Italy)
(b) dialectic (n; ultimately from Greek dialegesthai to converse, from dia- + legein to speak):
"2a: discussion and reasoning by dialogue as a method of intellectual investigation; specifically : the Socratic techniques of exposing false beliefs and eliciting truth
* * *
4b(1) usually plural but singular or plural in construction: development through the stages of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis in accordance with the laws of dialectical materialism
* * *
5 usually plural but singular or plural in construction a: any systematic reasoning, exposition, or argument that juxtaposes opposed or contradictory ideas and usually seeks to resolve their conflict"
All definitions are from www.m-w.com.

Note
(i) that the English nouns dialect and dialogue ultimately come from Greek dialegesthai, too, and
(ii) that the English noun legend is derived from Greek "legein."

* antithesis (n): "the rhetorical contrast of ideas by means of parallel arrangements of words, clauses, or sentences (as in 'action, not words' or 'they promised freedom and provided slavery')"

(c) dullard (n): "a stupid or unimaginative person"

Its corresponding adjective is "dull."
(d) The review mentions "Roanoke Island in Virginia."  

It is a blunder: Roanoke Island is in today's North carolina, though it was in Virginia colony when Englishmen came. See
(i) Colony of Virginia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_of_Virginia
(ii) Roanoke Island
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roanoke_Island
(It was named after the historical Roanoke Carolina Algonquian people who inhabited the area in the 16th century at the time of English exploration)

Roanoke is a Native American tribe, and Carolina Algonquian is a kind of Algonquian, a language.
(e) Pangaea
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangaea
(Ancient Greek pan "entire", and Gaia "Earth")
(f) Cartagena, Colombia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartagena,_Colombia
(a large Caribbean beach resort city; The Spanish colonial city was founded on June 1, 1533 and named after Cartagena, Spain; served a key role as a center of political and economic activity due to the presence of Spanish royalty and wealthy viceroys)

* Cartagena is Spanish for Carthage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthage
(Phoenician meaning New City, implying it was a 'new Tyre'; currently a suburb of Tunis, Tunisia; center of Carthaginian Empire)
(g) history of sugar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sugar
(Originally, people chewed sugarcane raw to extract its sweetness. Indians discovered how to crystallize sugar during the Gupta dynasty, around 350 AD.[4] Sugarcane was originally from tropical South Asia and Southeast Asia.[5] Different species likely originated in different locations with S. barberi originating in India and S. edule and S. officinarum coming from New Guinea)
(h) Yellow Fever
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_fever
(The origin of the disease is most likely to be Africa, from where it was introduced to South America through the slave trade in the 16th century)
(i) cattle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle#Domestication_and_husbandry
(sections 1 Species of cattle; 1.1 Word origin; Domestication and husbandry: domesticated since at least the early Neolithic)
(j) The review says, "Mr Mann describes how, as early as 1515, Spanish exlorers were astonished to discover that their own fugitive African slaves had beaten them across the Central American isthmuth, where they had had been warring with natives for years."

* beat (vt): "to come or arrive before"
* "The "they" in they had been warring with natives" is fugitive slaves.
(k) For white potato, see potato
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato
(from Andes; is the world's fourth-largest food crop, following rice, wheat, and maize [in decreasing order]; Potatoes are occasionally referred to as "Irish potatoes" or "white potatoes" in the United States, to distinguish them from sweet potatoes; section 5 Role in world food supply: Table with heading "Top Potato Producers")
(l) The review states "Columbus's exploration led Europeans to Peruvin silver."

silver
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver
(Peru, Bolivia and Mexico have been mining silver since 1546, and are still major world producers. Top silver-producing mines are Cannington (Australia), Fresnillo (Mexico), San Cristobal (Bolivia), Antamina (Peru), Rudna (Poland), and Penasquito (Mexico))


(2) From the author himself:
The Real Story of Globalization. Trade is an economic activity, but its greatest impact may be biological. Charles C Mann on stow away earthworms, far-flung potatoes and the world made by Columbus. Wall Street Journal, Aug 6, 2011.
online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903454504576486421307171028.html

(a) Excerpt in the window of print: The potato became the fuel for the rising Europe, while the sweet potato helped to weaken China.

(b) Quote:

"Why did Europe rise to predominance?  Why did China, once the richest, most advanced society on earth, fall to its knees?

"Introduced (along with corn) from South America via the Pacific silver trade in the 1590s, it suddenly provided a way for Chinese farmers to cultivate upland areas that had been unusable for rice paddies. The nutritious new crop encouraged the fertility boom of the Qing dynasty, but the experiment soon went badly wrong.

Because Chinese farmers had never cultivated their dry uplands, they made beginners’ mistakes. An increase in erosion led to extraordinary levels of flooding, which in turn fed popular unrest and destabilized the government. The new crops that had helped to strengthen Europe were a key factor in weakening China.

(c) Note:
(i) rootball (n): "the compact mass of roots and soil formed by a plant especially in a container"
(ii) The Scottish surname Paterson, like Patterson, is composed of a pet form of Pate (which is a short form of Patrick) + -son.
(iii) sweet potato
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_potato
(Sweet potatoes are native to Central America; section 2 Cultivation)
(iv) plaintain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaintain
(The fruit they [plaintain plants] produce is generally used for cooking, in contrast to the soft, sweet banana. There is no formal botanical distinction between bananas and plantains, and the use of either term is based purely on how the fruits are consumed)

* banana
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana
(native to tropical South and Southeast Asia, and are likely to have been first domesticated in Papua New Guinea)

(v) For potato blight, see Phytophthora infestans
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytophthora_infestans
(section 5 Historical impact: The origin of Phytophthora infestans can be traced to a valley in the highlands of central Mexico)
(vi) Hevea brasiliensis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hevea_brasiliensis
(the Pará rubber tree, often simply called rubber tree;  its sap-like extract (known as latex; The Pará rubber tree initially grew only in the Amazon Rainforest; The name of the tree derives from Pará, the second largest Brazilian state, whose capital is Belém)

* latex
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latex
* in Latin, latex means "fluid."
(vii) I am so sure about this theory of China's decline.


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