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Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong
amazon.com
American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy's Forgotten Crisis
amazon.com
The forward move on to the American continent was the work not of princes or capitalists at home in Europe, but of gold-hungry frontiersmen spurred on by the rapid exhaustion of the islands’ deposits. Without the short-lived gold rush on the Caribbean islands and the nearby Tierra Firme, the impetus towards the territorial conquest of the mainland
... See moreJohn Darwin • After Tamerlane: The Rise and Fall of Global Empires, 1400-2000

The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism
amazon.com
Columbus may have brought one back successfully to Spain, although pineapples tended to rot on the long return voyages across the Atlantic. He called it piña de Indes (“little pine of the Indians”) for its resemblance to the pinecone and declared it “the most delicious fruit in the world.” For the Spanish-Italian historian Pietro Martire d’Anghiera
... See moresi.edu • The Prickly Meanings of the Pineapple
The reconquest of Spain from Muslim rulers by the mid thirteenth century had encouraged the opening of a regular sea route between the Mediterranean and the ports of the English Channel and the North Sea. Lisbon, Seville and later Cadiz became the connecting links between the Atlantic and Mediterranean systems. Long before Columbus, Atlantic Iberia
... See moreJohn Darwin • After Tamerlane: The Rise and Fall of Global Empires, 1400-2000

