Details
Synopsis
In 1491: NEW REVELATIONS OF THE AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS, Charles C. Mann presents an accessible history that effectively wipes away generations of high-school teaching that trivialized, dismissed, or was just flat-out wrong about the peoples that inhabited what we have come to call the Americas prior to the contact with Columbus. Mann presents a huge amount of fascinating information, including how the Indians made their way to the new continents by crossing the Bering land bridge or riding warm sea currents from Japan. He describes the land as it was in their time, and how the Indians changed it, making plains where forests had been, and the rise of extensive and complex cities that rivaled those of Europe. He focuses primarily on the Incas and the Mexica (popularly called the Aztecs), as well as the Indians of New England, who encountered the Pilgrims. Drawing on a "tsunami" of research in the field of Native American studies, Mann, a science writer, offers an expanded view of the New World, synthesizing research in anthropology, population and demographics, agriculture and technology, and geography and archeology. He also touches on what happened to these people after the arrival of Europeans, considering in particular the impact of European-based diseases that decimated the populations. A New York Times Notable Book of the Year for 2005.
| Size | | Length: | 541 pages | | Height: | 8.0 in | | Width: | 5.3 in | | Thickness: | 1.2 in | | Weight: | 18.4 oz |
Industry Reviews
"As intriguing as these arguments are, it's Mann's engaging writing that will help bring them wider attention. He's got a knack for accurately--and interestingly--paraphrasing the dry-as-(ahem)-dust language of the scholarly archaeological report, and knows just when to throw in a personal anecdote or a fascinating digression. With which 14491 is positively crammed."
Ruminator Review - Matt Konrad
"Mann...masterfully assembles a diverse body of scholarship into a first-rate history of Native America and its inhabitants."
Publishers Weekly (06/20/2005)
"What's most shocking about 1491 is the feeling it induces of waking up from a long dream and slowly realizing just how thoroughly one has been duped. We all knew there were problems with the old narrative of brave European settlers crossing the Atlantic to find an empty continent, but it's jarring to discover, as Mann tells us, that in 1491 there were almost certainly more people living the Americas than in Europe--and that, in many ways, American civilizations of the time were as advanced as anything across the ocean."
Salon - Steve Kettmann (09/29/2005)
"Mann navigates adroitly through the controversies [regarding 'human life in the Americas before the arrival of Columbus']. He approaches each in the best scientific tradition, carefully sifting the evidence, never jumping to hasty conclusions, giving everyone a fair hearing....A remarkably engaging writer, he lucidly explains the significance of everything from haplogroups to glottochronology to landraces. He offers amusing asides to some of his adventures across the hemisphere during the course of his research, but unlike so many contemporary journalists, he never lets his personal experiences overwhelm his subject."
New York Times Book Review - Kevin Baker (10/09/2005)
"Charles C. Mann is a journalist and his new book, while not without flaws, is a journalistic masterpiece: lively, engaging, and full of the latest information about the peoples who lived in the Americas before Columbus joined the two sides of the Atlantic together."
New York Review of Books - William McNeill (12/01/2005)
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