Chapter 1. Origins of world crops and livestock
- Peopling of the world
- Origins of agriculture
- Transcontinental dispersal of Near East crops
- Spread of Agriculture across the Mediterranean Basin
- Indian Ocean dispersals
- Dispersal of New World crops
- Evolution of farming methods
- World agriculture systems in 1492
Chapter 2. Evolution of European agriculture
- Background
- Food and diet
- Mixed farming
- Open field system and the manor
- Muslim green revolution in Spain (Al Andalus)
- Spread of the Mediterranean agrosystem
Chapter 3. Agriculture in the Americas in the 16th century
- Background
- Rural economies in the Americas in 1492
- Food and agriculture of Aztecs
- Food and agriculture of Incas
- Food and agriculture of Maya
- Food and agriculture of Taíno
- Food and agriculture of Tupi-Guardi
- Food and agriculture of North America
Chapter 4. The Spanish conquest of the Americas
- Background - Who were the conquerors? - The initial Spanish conquest of the Americas
- Spread of the colonies
- Organization of Spanish America
- The Spanish colonial economy
- The Great Dying
- Effects of Columbian exchange on world population
Chapter 5. Crop and livestock introductions into Spanish America
- Background
- Early crop and livestock introductions to New Spain
- Early crop and livestock introductions to Peru
- Plantation crops introduced to Spanish America
Chapter 6. Homogenization of agriculture in Spanish America
- Background
- Colonial farms in the Caribbean
- Colonial farms in Mexico and Peru
- Old World livestock in the New World
- Amerindian farms after the conquest
Chapter 7. Portuguese colonization of Brazil
- The Portuguese colonization strategy
- Evolution of the Brazilian economy
- Slavery in the Americas
- Crop and Livestock introductions to Brazil
- Spread of sugar plantations to Caribbean
- Out from Africa
About the Author: James F. Hancock is a University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University. He received his Ph.D. in Genetics at the University of California, Davis. After a short stint in the Biology Department at the University of South Carolina, he moved to Michigan State University (MSU) as an assistant professor of Horticulture, where he was for over thirty years, being promoted to Professor in 1986. He was the Director of the Plant Breeding and Genetics Program at MSU from 2004 to 2009. The emphasis of his research has been on the breeding and genetics of blueberries and strawberries, and he has published prodigiously in these areas. His previous books have been The Strawberry; The Blueberry (with Jorge Retamales); Plantation Crops: Power and Plunder, Evolution and Exploitation; and Plant Evolution and the Origin of Crop Species. He has also edited Temperate Fruit Crop Genetics: Germplasm to Genomics, and Environmental Biosafety (with Rebecca Grumet, Karim Maredia and Cholani Weebadde). He is fellow of the American Society for Horticultural Science, Wilder medal recipient of the American Pomological Society, a former Fulbright Fellow to Chile, and received the Technology Transfer Achievement Award from the Innovation Center of MSU for his blueberry cultivar releases.
