World Agriculture Before and After 1492

The year 2022 is the 50th anniversary of Alfred Crosby's celebrated book -The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492. In the book,Crosby was the first to discuss the impact that the Spanish and Portuguese colonialperiod had on world agriculture and human culture. How the crops of the worldbecame homogenized, and how an indigenous culture was destroyed by disease afterColumbus landed. His landmark study broke new ground in its broad conceptualizationof the Atlantic exchange. Building on what Crosby so succinctly and brilliantly presented, the main goal of thisnew work is to present the depth of information that has emerged since "The ColumbianExchange" and to discuss more fully the development of crops and agriculture before andafter the Iberian contact. It follows the journey of crops and livestock in the Old and New Worlds andend's with their distribution in today's world.