i68 : The Atlantic 



important ways. First, it contributed the many different food plants 

 listed above which later were adapted to cultivation in soils and cli- 

 mates of many different parts of the world. In the second place, it 

 provided vast tracts of land and a variety of different cHmates suit- 

 able to the cultivation of plants that were already known to the 

 Europeans. Among the plants that took on a new lease of life in the 

 New World were sugar and coffee. 



It all began a long time ago. In its broadest sense, the New World, 

 the modern world, may be contrasted with the Old World that 

 Europe knew in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance. This New 

 World emerged and took shape in a remarkably brief time, consid- 

 ering the length of human history. 



Three developments of fundamental importance to human history, 

 developments that shaped the modern world, took place in the cen- 

 tury between 1450 and 1550. They not only followed each other in 

 rapid succession, they seem also to be related as cause and effect. 

 These are the three developments: 



1. Firearms were developed — firearms that could be transported 

 and that would operate with some effectiveness. 



2. The Great Age of Discovery and Exploration took place. This 

 more than doubled the area of the world known to Europeans. 



3. The potential food supply and the variety of food available to 

 Europeans was enormously increased and living room was in- 

 creased manyfold. 



To be on the safe side we have named a century of development, 

 but so far as geographic knowledge is concerned the bulk of the dis- 

 coveries were crowded into the fifty years that followed Columbus' 

 first voyage. 



Naturally it took time for these inventions and discoveries to pro- 

 duce their full effects in the course and direction of human history. 

 First, they produced in Europe an opportunity for relief and re- 

 adjustment such as followed the Black Death, only of a larger, more 

 lasting and more positive nature. Then they set the stage for the 

 Industrial Revolution and the great wave of expansion of European 

 peoples that accompanied it. 



In 1650 the population of Europe numbered about 100,000,000. By 

 1937 the people of Europe plus the people of European descent in 

 other parts of the world increased to 720,000,000. That is over seven- 

 fold. By contrast, the rest of the world, during the same period, had 

 increased only fourfold. By contrast also in the 300 years that pre- 



