Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World by Jack WeatherfordMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Time and time again, while reading this book, I read the title of the chapter, thought "Well, this is going to be a stretch", but then was pretty much convinced by the end of the chapter.
Some of the points ended up being a stretch (The Pilgrims didn't go from Leiden to the New World purely for profit, but also because of changes in the Netherlands, the "younger generations" becoming too Dutch, being more rural and not as used to city life, etc. But sure, profit was one of the points). I also found the connection to the industrial revolution, etc. a bit indirect.
Some others I knew in theory, but hadn't wrapped my mind around how pervasive the native american influence actually was, such as with food. From Russian/Irish potatoes, to Italian tomatoes and zucchini, to cashews, peanuts, corn worldwide, etc. etc., these (and a lot more) all came from the Americas.
By the way, he asserts that the Sichuan peppercorn originated with peppers in the Americas, but that sounds very odd to me.
And some others actually surprised me. I was sure the chapter on Native American influence on liberty, democracy, and the American constitution would be a complete stretch, but the chapters made a lot of sense. The Iroquois had a league, based on majority votes and caucuses (a Native American word), which Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, among others, quoted directly when writing about the American government structure. Everyone mentions Greek democracy, but odd that it didn't influence the world for 2,000 years until people went to the Americas. In fact, even the fact that the Iroquois league could vote new member states in was the only prior example of something similar for admitting new states into the union (rather than colonizing them and absorbing them that way).
Extra plus, I found out this is a signed copy! I had no clue (I ordered it used from Abebooks)!
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