The Columbian Exchange

The historian Alfred W. Crosby coined the term "Columbian Exchange" in his influential 1972 book of that title to describe the massive, largely irreversible transfer of plants, animals, diseases, people, and culture between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres that followed 1492 — a biological and demographic transformation Crosby argued was at least as consequential for world history as any political or military event of the era.