I loved this book that gives a longitudinal view of what effect Columbus' discovery of the Americas had on the world at the time, and then going forward. He picks a few things that are American to illustrate his overall point that this was a major turning point in civilization. I spent all last year helping my high school tenth grader with AP World History, so I had the nuts and bolts down ahead of reading this, but the way Mann fills in the gaps is wonderful.
In the four major sections of the book, he takes us around the Atlantic (with tobacco and malaria), the Pacific (with silver, piracy and corn), Europe (with potatoes, pesticides and rubber) and Africa (with race and slave rebellions). It is that sweeping, even using a limited number of examples. The conclusions he draws may not be universally agreed with, but his perspective on how each thing covered had an immediate effect, and then what the longer range view might be is a wonderful--and not dry--way to view historical influences that might be functioning today. The role of China on the world stage has waxed and waned over the past three thousand years, and to be able to see the recent re-emergence as part of a pattern over centuries rather than coming out of nowhere is very interesting.
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