It is tempting to argue that if Europeans hadn’t arrived in the New World, these deadly pandemics would not have happened. But the meeting of the Old World and the New was inevitable. If Europeans hadn’t carried disease to the New World, Asians or Africans would have; or New World mariners would have eventually reached the Old. No matter what, disaster would have ensued. This was a monstrous geographic accident waiting to happen. This was a time bomb that had been ticking for fifteen thousand years—counting down to that fateful moment when a ship with sick passengers finally set sail across
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