1491: New Revelations Of The Americas Before ColumbusA groundbreaking study that radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans in 1492. Traditionally, Americans learned in school that the ancestors of the people who inhabited the Western Hemisphere at the time of Columbus’s landing had crossed the Bering Strait twelve thousand years ago; existed mainly in small, nomadic bands; and lived so lightly on the land that the Americas was, for all practical purposes, still a vast wilderness. But as Charles C. Mann now makes clear, archaeologists and anthropologists have spent the last thirty years proving these and many other long-held assumptions wrong. In a book that startles and persuades, Mann reveals how a new generation of researchers equipped with novel scientific techniques came to previously unheard-of conclusions. Among them: • In 1491 there were probably more people living in the Americas than in Europe. • Certain cities–such as Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital–were far greater in population than any contemporary European city. Furthermore, Tenochtitlán, unlike any capital in Europe at that time, had running water, beautiful botanical gardens, and immaculately clean streets. • The earliest cities in the Western Hemisphere were thriving before the Egyptians built the great pyramids. • Pre-Columbian Indians in Mexico developed corn by a breeding process so sophisticated that the journalSciencerecently described it as “man’s first, and perhaps the greatest, feat of genetic engineering.” • Amazonian Indians learned how to farm the rain forest without destroying it–a process scientists are studying today in the hope of regaining this lost knowledge. • Native Americans transformed their land so completely that Europeans arrived in a hemisphere already massively “landscaped” by human beings. Mannsheds clarifying light on the methods used to arrive at these new visions of the pre-Columbian Americas and how they have affected our understanding of our history and our thinking about the environment. His book is an exciting and learned account of scientific inquiry and revelation. |
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Review: 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
User Review - Thomas - GoodreadsI thought this was a really excellent book, it reminded me a little of Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies but I think I liked it better actually. Mann really gets into what the ... Read full review
Review: 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
User Review - Al - GoodreadsThe author presents very interesting evidence about the state of the 'New World' prior to the entry of the Europeans in 1492 and thereafter. He presents significant data that contradicts much of what has been written in the past. Read full review
Contents
A View from Above | 3 |
Why Billington Survived | 31 |
In the Land of Four Quarters | 62 |
Frequently Asked Questions | 97 |
Pleistocene Wars | 137 |
Cotton or Anchovies and Maize Tales of | 174 |
Writing Wheels and Bucket Brigades Tales of | 204 |
Made in America | 243 |
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Bibliographic information
| Title | 1491: New Revelations Of The Americas Before Columbus Borsoi Book |
| Author | Charles C. Mann |
| Edition | illustrated, reprint |
| Publisher | Knopf, 2005 |
| ISBN | 140004006X, 9781400040063 |
| Length | 465 pages |
| Subjects | › History / Americas (North, Central, South, West Indies) History / Native American |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |