Last edited by LittleLebowski; 01-03-2018 at 06:30 AM.
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What was the Samurai's interest in Spanish Silver in the New World?
They were basically PMCs (professional military contractors), that's all.Originally Posted by rd62
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The whole point of the second book (1493, which I read first) was to illustrate how much botanical exchange and secondly, how much cultural interchange went on between the New World and Eurasia. For example, the potato is a South American/Peruvian tuber that ended up changing the way Europeans (especially the Irish) ate and for the better. Things were actually pretty bad for your average European from a daily caloric intake standpoint before the potato.
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I read 1491 awhile back, didn't know 1493 had came out. I'll need to check it out.
"History on Fire" has a great series on the Conquest of Mexico that would be a great companion to 1491, 1493.
"EPISODE 20 The Conquest Of Mexico (Part 1): People Of The Sun" discusses the Mesoamericans pre-1500.
Last edited by JodyH; 01-03-2018 at 08:42 AM.
"For a moment he felt good about this. A moment or two later he felt bad about feeling good about it. Then he felt good about feeling bad about feeling good about it and, satisfied, drove on into the night."
-- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy --
Well, I was looking for something to read.
I love books like this. I mean, I knew about potatoes and tomatoes and corn and suchlike, but knowing a random factoid in the abstract is not the same as sitting down and parsing out all the implications of that random factoid.
La Noche Triste is just begging for the right movie treatment. It's like a 16th Century Black Hawk Down.
The guys who conquered Central and South America were probably some of the most experienced soldiers ever. They'd been fighting in the Reconquista and as mercenaries in the various feuds among the Italian city-states all their lives, and some of their subsequent exploits in the New World are nothing short of epic.
Give “Guns, Germs and Steel” a read if you haven’t. I found it pretty interesting.
Last edited by MSparks909; 01-03-2018 at 09:48 AM.
Shoot more, post less...
Victor Davis Hanson's Carnage and Culture, written as something of a rebuttal piece, was interesting as well.
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