Good sequel to 1491 but not as earth-shattering

1493: Uncovering the new world Columbus Created
by Charles C Mann

The first parts of this book concentrated on the spread of plants and microorganisms from Old World to New and back again, and it was truly fascinating. Were there really no earthworms in the Americas until farmers brought them in tree root balls? How significant were malaria and yellow fever in promoting Negro slavery? Very. How did sweet potatoes and corn cause the Chinese population explosion? So much interesting stuff!

Later on, when he described the endless wars and expansions of Europeans across the Americas and the far east, he started to lose me. Only at the end, when he wrote about the Philippines and their unique but all too common loss of biologic diversity, did I come back on board.

Among many things that us insular Americans never realize is that for every Caucasian person who came to the Americas, there were ten (or more) Africans. And another thing is the overwhelming death rate experienced by all of the people--immigrants, slaves, and native Americans. He doesn't mention it in the book, but could our peoples of the Americas have undergone a small dose of "survival of the fittest" along the way? Although we no longer have smallpox and dysentery, yellow fever and malaria (at least in the north), selection for resistance to these diseases must have been tremendous.