I just finished reading a pair of wonderful books, 1491 and 1493, both by Charles Mann. The first, 1491, is an in-depth survey of the history and civilizations of the Western Hemisphere prior to the arrival of the Europeans, and what happened to the folks who had been living here after that event. I found it riveting, and chock full of things that I either had no knowledge of whatsoever, or whose significance I hadn’t fully appreciated earlier.

For example, the “virgin forest” described by early colonial settlers appears to have been the result of intensive farming by the native Americans. As also appears to be the case with the Amazon rainforest. The reason neither was appreciated by the Europeans was because there was little or not tradition of “farming” trees in Europe, and diseases to which the original inhabitants had little resistance spread in advance of the wave of colonization, killing off as much as 95% or 96% of the inhabitants. I cannot imagine what the impact of that extinction level event was to the previously-thriving cultures, which, like the Europeans, had no understanding of how bacteria and viruses cause disease, let alone how to combat them.

1493 focuses on the global paroxysms that resulted from that first contact, as Western Hemisphere crops — and pests — flooded the world, along with Inka silver destabilizing both European and Asian societies. 

Definitely worth reading.