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Western Civilization · Chapter 9

The Exchange Engine

Alfred Crosby named it the Columbian Exchange in 1972 because the old word — discovery — missed the point: the traffic ran both ways, and most of it was invisible. Take each cargo and send it in the direction it actually travelled. Then follow the chain it set off, four links deep.

The cargo deck

Pick one, then choose its direction. Getting it wrong is useful — the feedback tells you where it really came from.

← Sailed west

to the Americas

Sailed east →

to Afro-Eurasia

Keyboard: tab to a cargo, press Enter to select, then tab to a direction button. Every cargo carries a four-step consequence chain on the right.

0 of 13 cargoes placed · 0 sent the right way
THE AMERICAS AFRO-EURASIA —
Waiting
Send a cargo
Nothing in the Columbian Exchange moved on its own. Somebody loaded it.
Indigenous population of the Americas100
Index, 1492 = 100. Estimates of the 1492 population run from 40 million to over 100 million; many specialists cluster near 50–60 million.
Afro-Eurasian food supply100
Index, 1492 = 100. American crops fed people on three other continents within two centuries.
First global trade circuit: not yet open.