1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
In this groundbreaking work of science, history, and archaeology, Charles C. Mann radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus in 1492. Contrary to what so many Americans learn in school, the pre-Columbian Indians were not sparsely settled in a pristine...
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In this groundbreaking work of science, history, and archaeology, Charles C. Mann radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus in 1492. Contrary to what so many Americans learn in school, the pre-Columbian Indians were not sparsely settled in a pristine wilderness; rather, there were huge numbers of Indians who actively molded and influenced the land around them. The astonishing Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan had running water and immaculately clean streets, and was larger than any contemporary European city. Mexican cultures created corn in a specialized breeding process that it has been called man’s first feat of genetic engineering. Indeed, Indians were not living lightly on the land but were landscaping and manipulating their world in ways that we are only now beginning to understand. Challenging and surprising, this a transformative new look at a rich and fascinating world we only thought we knew.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9781400032051 (1400032059)
ASIN: 1400032059
Publish date: October 10th 2006
Publisher: Vintage
Pages no: 541
Edition language: English
Category:
Non Fiction,
History,
Literature,
Book Club,
Science,
American,
Culture,
Politics,
American History,
Anthropology,
World History
This is an important book. The author compiles historical and archaeological research to provide a history of the Americas before (and shortly after) the arrival of Europeans. And it’s a legit history, in ways I didn’t realize were even lacking in my previous acquaintance with early American history...
This is the type of book that you read, and you actually learn from. The focus is on the societies in the Americas, in particular Meso-America, prior to the discovery or arrival of Europeans. There is quite a bit about the societies but also about why diseases affected Native Americans far differe...
In some ways, I'm just really glad to be done with this book. I didn't have a plan for reading this one, so it took longer than it really should have taken. I'd never really considered how the early setterers viewed the Native Americans or how history viewed them later on. It makes no sense to me th...
I really enjoyed reading this book. It read like an interesting textbook, engaging and informative, but was almost informal at times. Parts were like a friend telling a story rather than reading a historical account. It was entertaining, but quite dense with information so it took a while to get thr...
Quite frankly an amazing book, and one of the very few I'd suggest is a MUST read. If you're ready to let go the myth of the hapless 'noble savage' and to release your mental image of a loin-clothed squaw with a single rear rolling down her cheek, and are ready to consider the possibility of fairly ...