Crosby, Alfred W. The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492, 30th anniversary ed. 2003. An innovative and highly influential account of the environmental impact of Columbus’s voyages.
Elliot, J. H. Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America, 1492–1830. 2006. A masterful account of the differences and similarities between the British and Spanish Empires in the Americas.
Fernández-Armesto, Felipe. Columbus. 1992. An excellent biography of Christopher Columbus.
Mann, Charles C. 1491: New Revelations on the Americas Before Columbus, 2d ed. 2011. A highly readable account of the peoples and societies of the Americas before the arrival of Europeans.
Menard, Russell R. Sweet Negotiations: Sugar, Slavery, and Plantation Agriculture in Early Barbados. 2006. Explores the intertwined history of sugar plantations and slavery in seventeenth-century Barbados.
Northrup, David, ed. The Atlantic Slave Trade. 1994. Collected essays by leading scholars on many different aspects of the slave trade.
Parker, Charles H. Global Interactions in the Early Modern Age, 1400–1800. 2010. An examination of the rise of global connections in the early modern period, which situates the European experience in relation to the world’s other empires and peoples.
Pestana, Carla. Protestant Empire: Religion and the Making of the British Atlantic World. 2009. Shows the impact of religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics on the emergence of European empires.
Pomeranz, Kenneth, and Steven Topik. The World That Trade Created: Society, Culture, and the World Economy, 1400 to the Present. 1999. The creation of a world market presented through rich and vivid stories of merchants, miners, slaves, and farmers.
Restall, Matthew. Seven Myths of Spanish Conquest. 2003. A re-examination of common ideas about why and how the Spanish conquered native civilizations in the New World.
Rountree, Helen C. Pocahontas, Powhatan, Opechancanough: Three Indian Lives Changed by Jamestown. 2005. Biographies of three important Native Americans involved in the Jamestown settlement, presenting a rich portrait of the life of the Powhatan people and their encounter with the English.
DOCUMENTARIES
Columbus: The Lost Voyage (History Channel, 2007). Recounts the little-known story of Christopher Columbus’s fourth and final voyage, featuring interviews with experts and re-creations of important episodes along the route.
Conquistadors (PBS, 2000). Traveling in the footsteps of the Spanish conquistadors, the narrator tells their story while following the paths and rivers they used. Includes discussion of the perspectives and participation of native peoples.
1421: The Year China Discovered America? (PBS, 2004). Investigates the voyages of legendary Chinese admiral Zheng He, exploring the possibility that he and his fleet reached the Americas decades before Columbus.
FEATURE FILMS AND TELEVISION
Black Robe (Bruce Beresford, 1991). A classic film about French Jesuit missionaries among Algonquin and Huron Indians in New France in the seventeenth century.
Marco Polo (Hallmark Channel, 2007). A made-for-television film that follows Italian merchant Marco Polo as he travels to China to establish trade ties with Mongol emperor Kublai Khan.
The New World (Terrence Malick, 2005). Set in 1607 at the founding of the Jamestown settlement, this film retells the story of John Smith and Pocahontas.
WEB SITES
The Globalization of Food and Plants. Hosted by the Yale University Center for the Study of Globalization, this Web site provides information on how various foods and plants — such as spices, coffee, and tomatoes — traveled the world in the Columbian exchange. yaleglobal.yale.edu/about/food.jsp
Historic Jamestowne. Showcasing archaeological work at the Jamestown settlement, the first permanent English settlement in America, this site provides details of the latest digs along with biographical information about settlers, historical background, and resources for teachers and students. www.historicjamestowne.org
Plymouth Colony Archive Project. A site hosted by the anthropology department at the University of Illinois that contains a collection of searchable primary and secondary sources relating to the Plymouth colony, including court records, laws, seventeenth-century journals and memoirs, wills, maps, and biographies of colonists. www.histarch.uiuc.edu/Plymouth/index.html