Europe's voyages of exploration succeeded in shrinking the world - not physically of course (though click here to see proof that the world may actually be getting smaller). Columbus's voyage to the Americas was especially successful in connecting the world. So, we have Columbus to thank for a day off of school, but also for the creation of an interrelated global network! Great, right?
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He's beauty and he's grace... he found the United States!
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The Columbian exchange demonstrated the first key cause of the shrinking world, the sharing and integration of resources and culture. With Columbus’s first voyage to the Americas in 1492 (he sailed the ocean blue!), contact between the two great continents was made for the first time.
Some reasons why it's good that America made a connection with Europe:
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However, along with that connection came a crapload of European diseases which basically killed all of the Native Americans. (You're allowed to hate the European voyagers a little for this). The Europeans took advantage of the destruction of the native population, and paraded around the newly-discovered areas to spread their own religion and culture! Furthermore, since the entire population of people who were living in America had been wiped out, more and more foreigners from Europe and Asia began to immigrate to the "new world". These dynamic shifts of culture and population showed the first evidence of a shrinking world - the formation of a single, concentrated area where different peoples integrated into one body. (1-0 Diversity!)
In addition, the biological exchange of animals, which resulted from Columbus's voyage, succeeded in uniting the world in agriculture.
Domestic animal-based tasks, previously only isolated to Europe, became possible worldwide. (And no, I don't mean milking cows). Animals like horses, traded from the European voyagers for American crops and food, allowed national husbandry to become standardized across the globe. This unification in terms of animal resources and capabilities displayed further confirmation of a shrinking world.
Thank you to my friends...
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| Mr. Cow |
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| Mr. Horse |
Finally, the biological exchange of plants and food helped spread natural resources on a global level. New world crops such as American corn and sweet potatoes were spread by Western merchants to eastern Asia (ex; China), the Mediterranean, and parts of Africa. (They had yet to discover the creation of french fries and potato chips. If they had, no doubt even more potatoes would have been exchanged!)
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YUMM!
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This exchange began the process of integrating more people, labor, and resources into the new global network, which undoubtedly quickened the process of a contracting world. Honestly, what is a few diseases and deaths compared to the success that Columbus had in connecting the world? *
*THINK HARD BEFORE YOU ANSWER THAT QUESTION...
Overall, the Columbian exchange shrank the world by integrating the global people and cultures into one concentrated region and by allowing the Americas to enter international trade by way of crop/food exchange. Click here for more joyful reading about the Columbian exchange.
Farewell, dear reader. Like/subscribe/comment!!
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