In Alfred Crosby’s Ecological Imperialism the Biological Expansion of Europe, 900 – 1900, he talks about Europe’s expansion over the last centuries, which has come to change life almost everywhere in the world today. Crosby supports his argument in several different ways, which were all through historical roots about the world. He started with Pangaea, which refers to how the earth exists 200 million years ago when the entire continents were one landmass and when dinosaurs were roaming about. About 180 million years ago, the crust of the earth broke up, divided into multiple landmass, moving away from each other. The dividing of the earth led to mammals succeeding against the dinosaurs and other animals to be at different parts of the world.
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Another one of Crosby’s point is to exemplify Europe’s success with animals. Crosby gives several examples in his book where animals played a major role in Europeans conquering islands and other parts of the world. One of them he talked about are the Guanches, who were familiar with smaller live stocks- goats and pigs, but they had never seen and animal as large as a horse, nor any animal that carried men on their backs and obeyed orders in battles. Crosby talked about Soldiers on horseback who played a vital role in the conquest of the last two Canaries, and probably the others as well. He also talked about the story of Lope Fernandez de la Guerra, a mounted knight, of course. He went out on reconnaissance alone in the final stages of Tenerife campaign and found himself ambushed by 15 or 20 Guanches. An infantryman would have been swarmed over and killed instantly, but Lope Fernandez had a horse, so he used that as an advantage to escape the ambush. When he was safe and comfortable, he decided to go back and fight them. He was able to knock over six of them and made the rest retreat. He took one of them back. This made the Guanches afraid and they sensibly surrendered because they knew the power of the horsemen (89-90). This shows that the Europeans were once again successful, as Crosby had argued because of the animal migrating with
Another one of Crosby’s point is to exemplify Europe’s success with animals. Crosby gives several examples in his book where animals played a major role in Europeans conquering islands and other parts of the world. One of them he talked about are the Guanches, who were familiar with smaller live stocks- goats and pigs, but they had never seen and animal as large as a horse, nor any animal that carried men on their backs and obeyed orders in battles. Crosby talked about Soldiers on horseback who played a vital role in the conquest of the last two Canaries, and probably the others as well. He also talked about the story of Lope Fernandez de la Guerra, a mounted knight, of course. He went out on reconnaissance alone in the final stages of Tenerife campaign and found himself ambushed by 15 or 20 Guanches. An infantryman would have been swarmed over and killed instantly, but Lope Fernandez had a horse, so he used that as an advantage to escape the ambush. When he was safe and comfortable, he decided to go back and fight them. He was able to knock over six of them and made the rest retreat. He took one of them back. This made the Guanches afraid and they sensibly surrendered because they knew the power of the horsemen (89-90). This shows that the Europeans were once again successful, as Crosby had argued because of the animal migrating with