1493_ Uncovering the New World Columbus Created - Charles C. Mann [232]
Even Isaac Newton, never a modest man, admitted that he was able to see far only because he stood on the shoulders of giants. In this way—if only in this way—all writers can claim kinship to Newton. For this book, some of these giants are mostly invisible—they are beneath the text in so many places that I found it hard to cite them anywhere in particular. Whenever I didn’t understand something as I wrote 1493, I asked, “What did David Christian say about this?” Then I would page through Maps of Time and find his admirably concise take on the matter. Just as dog-eared and grease-stained is my copy of Robert Marks’s crisply opinionated Origins of the Modern World. Encountering a question about the Spanish realm, I turned to Henry Kamen’s Empire. When I had a question about China and the West, I turned with equal alacrity to Kenneth Pomeranz’s Great Divergence. For the galleon trade, Dennis Flynn and Arturo Giráldez have so many papers that I’m not sure which to say I pilfered most frequently. Books by Robin Blackburn, David Brion Davis, David Eltis, and John Thornton played the same role with regard to slavery. Individual chapters owe much to individual works. Chapter 3 is indebted to Mosquito Empires by J. R. McNeill. Countless details in Chapters 4 and 5 are from Li Jinming’s Zhangzhou Port (). My musings on the potato in Chapter 6 are lifted shamelessly from Michael Pollan’s Botany of Desire. Tom Standage’s Edible History of Humanity also played a role here, as it did in all this book’s discussions of food, agriculture, and other matters. John Hemming’s Tree of Rivers and Susanna Hecht’s Scramble for the Amazon are sturdy underpinnings for Chapter 7. John Thornton’s many works rustle alluringly in the background of Chapter 8. Richard Price’s First-Time and Rainforest Warriors are the foundations of my discussion of Suriname in Chapter 9. If 1493 brings new readers to these books, I will be more than satisfied.
Any project that attempts to cover a large area must contend with humankind’s linguistic creativity. Lucky for me, I was accompanied in China by Josh D’Aluisio-Guerrieri, who also found a host of Chinese sources for me from his home in Taipei, read even the most ancient gazetteer with aplomb, and put up with endless lists of e-mailed questions. All translations from Chinese in 1493 are by Josh, except a very few from Devin Fitzgerald, whom I asked for help when I couldn’t bear bothering Josh any more. Scott Sessions took time from the immense assembly of the African-American Religion Documentary History Project to answer many, many questions when sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spanish proved beyond my compass. Susanna Hecht was a boon companion in Brazil, a fine translator, generous with her immense knowledge of that great nation. There is nobody I would rather have a car breakdown with in quilombo country. Reiko Sono’s help with matters Japanese is hereby thanked and acknowledged.
This big book about many things had many friends in many places. Maria Isabel Garcia, the finest science writer in Manila, kindly did a host of favors there for me, including finding a boat in Mindoro, and people to pilot it. Clark Erickson provided a tent and sleeping bag for me in Bolivia, and told me how to hire a plane in Trinidad. Alceu Ramzi gave me amazing aerial tours of Acre and didn’t laugh when my lecture was interrupted, unbelievably, by a clown act. Dennis Flynn