History Affairs
Andes to Ireland: How the Potato Reshaped Global Agriculture
By 1800, the potato had become the staple of a large part of the European poor, especially in cold upland areas.
Chinese History
How Tobacco and Sweet Potatoes Shaped China
Almost no corner of Chinese society proved immune to tobacco’s allure.
Chinese History
Silver and Silk Linked China and Spain Empires
In the early 1400s, an immense Chinese fleet regularly appeared on the horizon, so large and intimidating that foreign kings watched in astonishment from their palaces. Hundreds of wide-bellied warships loaded with soldiers unfurled banners above their huge sails, dwarfing the greatest armadas Europe could muster. Commanded by a onetime
US History
Columbus’s Lost Letters and the Malaria Puzzle
If the colonists truly caught malaria at La Isabela, it would imply the parasite arrived with them.
US History
La Isabela and the Columbian Exchange
Here, on the red soil of the Dominican Republic’s north coast, I was in La Isabela, Christopher Columbus’s first permanent settlement in the Americas.