by Jerrid M. Wolflick (Editor), Kathleen Wheeler (Editor), Paul McCartney (Editor)
Pre-Columbian Sailors Influenced the World is about the spread and diffeusion of plants, animals, doseases, and culture across the world's oceans long before Christopher Columbus ever sailed from Europe. This book details, in an easy-to-understand fashion, the abundnace of evidence available proving that humans from tropical cultures around the world sailed across both the Padifid and Atlantic Oceans long before the Eurpoean Christain Age of Expansion, These earlier sailors brought plants, animals, and some diseases as well as shared cultural traits with other societies they met across the oceans. The evidence shows that mariners sailed from the Americas to China, India, many of the Pacific Islands, Africa, and the Middle East as well as to the Americas from Asia, Africa, India, some of the Pacific Islands, and Northern Europe. This book is a must-read if one wants to understand the true spread of civilization and culutral sharing around the tropical and subtropical worlds by non-European, non-White cultures. In this day of rising fear of foreigners it is imperative that we acknowledge and celebrate the contributions to world culture made by the people of the tropics.
Author Biography
Carl L. Johannessen was born in Santa Ana, CA on July 28, 1924. In 1943 he joined the navy and served in the Pacific Theater of Operations in the tropics. He left the navy in 1946 and went back to college. He graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a B.A. in Wildlife Conservation and Management in 1950 and an M.A. in Zoology in 1953. He earned his Ph.D. in Geography in 1959 under the eminent geographers Carl O. Sauer and James Parsons. Carl has researched early diffusion for morethan 50 years, both while a tenured professior at the University of Oregon and after retirement as an Emeritus Professor and independent researcher. He has published many professional articles on the subject as well as co-suthored an academic book, World Trade and Biological Exchanges Before 1492 C.E., Revised and Expanded Edition.