Another eye and mind-opening book from Jack Weatherford.
It will give you a completely different perspective on how native Americans have influenced the world.
Flow: 4/5
Actionability: 3/5
Mindset: 5/5
Some of My Highlights:
“Instead, we need a history that moves beyond stereotypes to assess the importance of Indians in world history.”
“Culture is relative, not truth.”
“Potosí rivaled such Old World cities as London and Paris in size.”
“The Aztec soldiers easily killed and captured the slow-moving Spaniard burdened by their gold, and many of the conquistadores drowned because the heavy gold dragged them down when they fell from the causeway into the lake.”
“Gold serves well for jewelry, decorating palaces and churches, and making some very valuable coins, but for the thousands and millions of daily transactions necessary to make a money economy, silver process much more practical.”
“The new coins helped to wash away the old aristocratic order in which money games could be played only by the privileged few; massively larger amounts of money opened up new games to new people.”
“Precious metals from America superseded land as the basis for wealth, power, and prestige.”
“After Simón Bolívar led the South American colonies in their long and bloody revolt against Spain, British companies quickly moved in to fill the economic and sometimes political void.[
“Around the time the potato arrived in Europe, a cornucopia of other New World crops and products also poured in.”
“Greece, Rome, Persia and Egypt all had successful empires primarily because of their control of grain production.”
“With the new calorie source and the new source of nutrition, the potato-fed armies of Frederick of Prussia and Catherine of Russia began pushing against their southern neighbors.”