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This factoid-rich episode is a major rewriting of one of the earliest and most popular episodes of the podcast, Introduction to the Columbian Exchange, which originally aired on February 12, 2021 and then again in a revised form as episode #166 on October 11, 2024. This version includes lots of new aspects of the Columbian Exchange, and more recent scholarship on several of the topics discussed in the old episodes.
The supercontinent known as Pangaea (Pangea if you are reading most American textbooks) began to split apart around 200 million years ago, near the beginning of the dinosaur era, and the new Atlantic Ocean entirely divided the eastern and western hemispheres about 75 million years ago. Biological life on the two continents probably began evolving separately about 100 million years ago.
That biological diversity enabled by the breaking up of Pangaea has been an enormous boon for homo sapiens as a species in the more than five centuries since October 12, 1492, and also the cause of much suffering for individual humans in both the Americas and the Old World, Africa particularly.
I learned a lot in the rewriting of this – such as the correct scholarly spelling for the name of the supercontinent of old is “Pangaea” – and I hope you do too.
And listen to the end for the controversial takes!
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#166 Introduction to the Columbian Exchange (Revised)
Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the website)
Alfred W. Crosby, Jr., The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492, 30th Anniversary Edition
Noble David Cook, Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492-1650
Charles C. Mann, 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created
Nathan Nunn and Nancy Qian, “The Columbian Exchange: A History of Disease, Food, and Ideas”
Rodrigo Barquera and others, “Ancient genomes reveal a deep history of Treponema pallidum in the Americas,” Nature, December 18, 2024 (subscription required).
Jorge R. Díaz-Valderrama and others, “The History of Cacao and Its Diseases in the Americas,” Phytopathology, September 14, 2020.
