HISTORY · BIOGEOGRAPHY
Alfred W. Crosby
Also known as: Crosby, Alfred Worcester, Crosby, A. W.
Alfred Worcester Crosby (15 January 1931-) Alfred W. Crosby was born in Boston in 1931 where he still lives with his wife Barbara and daughter Carolyn Jane. He graduated from Harvard College in 1952 and served in the United States Army, stationed in Panama (1952-1955). After his army service he earned a Master in the Art of Teaching (M.A.T.) from the Harvard School of Education and a Doctor of Philosophy in history from Boston University in 1961. His dissertation was published as his first book, "America, Russia, Hemp, and Napoleon: a study of trade between the United States and Russia, 1783-1814" from the time of the American Revolution through the War of 1812. During his academic career he taught at Albion College, the Ohio State University, Washington State University, and finally the University of Texas at Austin. He retired from the University of Texas in 1999 as Professor Emeritus of Geography, History, and American Studies. His involvement in the Civil Rights movement, teaching Black Studies, helping to build a medical center for the United Farm Workers’ Union, and taking a leadership role in anti-Vietnam War demonstrations set him off in intellectually unorthodox directions. He became particularly interested in the histories of people who were victimized, economically exploited, or enslaved in the advance of European imperialism and capitalism, and thereby in the influence in that advance of nonpolitical, nonreligious, and largely ignored factors—especially infectious disease. All this did not make of him a Marxist radical, because—as he put it—he was not that much of an optimist. It did, however, inspire interest in demography and epidemiology, which led him to write several books—"The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492" (1972); "America’s Forgotten Pandemic (originally Epidemic and Peace 1918)" (1976); and "Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900" (1986). His fascination with several subdivisions of intellectual and technological history produced "The Measure of Reality: Quantification and Western Society, 1250-1600" (1997); "Throwing Fire: Projectile Technology Through History"; and "Children of the Sun: A History of Humanity’s Unappeasable Appetite for Energy". His work as a historian, he said, turned him from facing the past to facing the future.
On the evening of October 11, 1492, Christopher Columbus, on board the Santa Maria in the Atlantic Ocean, thought he saw a tiny light far in the distance.
— from The Columbian exchange, 1972
Most acclaimed
Children of the sun
1883
[aka Children of the Shadows: The True Story of the Street Urchins of Naples] "A damning indictment ... Mr. West has written with deep feeling." - Catholic Times. First published in the 1950s, this non-fiction book deals with the plight of the urchins of Naples, homeless boys who sleep in doorways, and beg and steal and scratch along as best they can, unprotected by the State. Padre Mario Borrelli sets out to help, and embarks on a journey of self-transformation. == There was a child whom I used to visit in the House of the Urchins. His name is Antonino. He was eight years old, but his body was so small and his face so pinched and pale that you would have taken him for five or six. When I came into the small dusty courtyard where he played with the other boys, he would leave the game immediately and run to me, arms outstretched, calling my name ... Then I knew that I must write this book, to purge myself of the nightmare. I must make my voice the voice of the children, the hungry, the homeless, the dispossessed, the damned innocents of Naples. == Eight years old, his body so small, his face so pinched, you would take him for five or six ... Antonino, homeless, loveless child of dark alleys -- a scugnizzo of the Naples slums, one of thousands whose waking hours are spent in petty crime and traffic in vice and whose bed is a street grating above a baker's oven. In the appalling darkness of their lives, only one light shines -- Don Mario Borrelli, the priest of the Urchins, dedicated to saving what he can of this human wreckage.
Ecological Imperialism
1986
Crosby argues that the expansion of European culture and genetic stock was a function of ecology and biology over time rather than a result of quick and painful conquests.