[book review] "The Years of Rice and Salt" by Kim Stanley Robinson

The Years of Rice and Salt has a simple premise: what if the black plague of the 1300's had wiped out 99% of Europe's population? I've been calling this the "no white people" book as shorthand, and I think that's a fairly succinct summary. The premise is simple, but the outcome, with the imminent super-colonizing-genocidal-power of Europe off the world stage, is not.
( Some things never change )

Overall, I enjoyed reading it, and would recommend it to an audience with a background in history and a love of exploring ideas, sometimes at the expense of plot.