The Columbian Exchange by Alfred W. Crosby, Jr.

“Specialization almost always narrows the possibilities for future changes: for the sake of present convenience, we loot the future.”
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“No large group of the human race in the Old World was quicker to adopt American food plants than the Chinese. While men who stormed Tenochtitlán with Cortés still lived, peanuts were swelling in the sandy loams near Shanghai; maize was turning fields green in south China and the sweet potato was on its way to becoming the poor man’s staple in Fukien.”