This is CBS I On The World with John Bacheler. Here's John Bacheler.

The Earth transformed an untold history by Professor Peter Frankapan of Oxford University,

a professor of global history. The mosquito empires of the period that we reach to in North

America as well as Africa as well as Asia. The mosquito empires, the limits of malaria,

aka yellow fever. I learned from the professor that in this period of exploitation of nature

and mankind, after the in the 17th and 18th century, the limits of the people to survive

in mosquito empires defined their ability to respond to the politics in Europe and also

the opportunities in the new world. Professor, the malaria story is one that I did not ever

think of as a limitation on the Europeans. Did they themselves see it that way?

Yes, they did. In common parlance, where West Africa was known as the white man's grave,

social life expectancies when many Europeans tried to reach West Africa and one of the challenges

was around disease environments. Ironically, what happened in the case of transatlantic

slavery was that many of the people who were being transported, of course, against their well

and horrific conditions, bonded for forever and their progeny too, were so desirable,

particularly after the 1670s, 1680s, 1680s, was because not all but some populations in West Africa

contained genetic mutations that give genetic resistance to malaria, at least provide 90%

resistance to malaria. And that mutation meant that their survivability in malaria areas,

which has been passed down from generation to generation for several thousand years,

made them extremely resilient in exposed malaria zones, both in West Africa, but also

in the Americas once malaria became established in the late 17th century. And we can see the horrors

of this because the prices of people who came from zones with high maleral resistance are higher

than from others. So there was no idea, I think, about the science at the time, amongst those

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