[fbabooksales]

What is the correct view of the Columbian Exchange? Does the Wikipedia article offer an extreme politically-correct version? How can I explain this to others?

[Jason Jewell]

Good morning,

I’m not certain what you mean by “the correct view.” Certainly there was a long-term impact on both sides of the Atlantic as the result of the transfer of people, various plant and animal species, microbes, etc. Beyond that, I’m not sure what you are asking. Would you mind elaborating on the question?

[fbabooksales]

By “correct view,” I simply meant a view that might differ from any revisionist, politically-correct view that’s commonly found in most of today’s high school and college textbooks. I don’t trust much of anything that’s written in most of these textbooks today.

[Jason Jewell]

I work with mostly graduate students now, and it has been some time since I have seen the latest edition of a high-school or undergraduate survey text. So I do not have any direct examples to share with you.

What I would look for in deciding whether a textbook was skewed in this case would be an exaggerated account of how rosy pre-Columbian life was in the Americas, or an account that only discussed the negative impact of the exchange on the Americas. These are narratives that would play up the victim status of the peoples the Europeans encountered.

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