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Dec 29, 2011

Brendan rated it:

The survey of current thinking on the population of the americas via that Beringia land bridge and the subsequent summary of the evolutions of early american society is interesting.

But the repeated comparisons between american society and eurasian society are really fraught and often belabored. The comparisons between the two hemisphere's agriculture and domesticable animals are fine, but the assertion that Aztec (apparently it's more politically correct to call them Mexica) philoso More...

0 comments like (17 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Douglas rated it:

As someone who writes professionally in this area (unabashed plug: watch for God's Mercies, Doubleday Canada, in October 07) I have high praise for this title, a long-overdue assessment of native culture and civilization before (and at) contact with Europeans. I'm still reading it, but I've been impressed so far.[I've now finished, see below.] Anyone who enjoyed it should also consider Elaine Dewar's Bones, which explores the archaeological controversy of how long people have been in the New Wor More...

0 comments like (21 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Aili rated it:

So the major thing to note here is that this is a history of the inhabitants of pre-Columbian Western Hemisphere... written by a feature journalist. It has a lot of straight history, but also a lot of information gleaned from non-standard or new techniques, such as archaeology, forensic science, and linguistics. Oh, and actually talking to folks who identify as indigenous -- who are, lots of them, still around.

A fair amount of the material was familiar to me from taking Colonial Lati More...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

Aug 25, 2007

Jason rated it:

Very well written, a good mixture of factual evidence and narrative. The main take home point here should be known to everyone, especially Americans. There is a reason why there was a period of 128 years between Colombus' landing and a permanent European settlement in North America. Namely, there were millions of Native Americans there who thought Europeans were dirty, amusing creatures who had interesting objects but were not fit for being neighbors. Attempted European settlers were continuousl More...

0 comments like (11 people liked it)

Jan 12, 2009

Bruce rated it:

Let me start by noting that Mann is a journalist, rather than a historian or cultural anthropologist. This results in a work that is extremely accessible to the non specialist reader and lacking in jargon.

So much of our notions of what North America was like before Europeans arrived are the result of our own impact on the continent. The notion of an empty continent populated by either "noble savages" or aborigines comes from the fact that the population was decimated by More...

1 comment like (8 people liked it)

Aug 21, 2008

Stefan rated it:

This book could be good. Unfortunately the author seems determined in every part of his "research" to interject his own opinion without duly backing it up. I stopped reading it somewhere around page 100, where the author makes the comparison between ritual human sacrifice by the Aztecs and executions in European countries. By taking the executions in England for a 100 year period, then adjusting for the size of the English population compared to the estimated possible population of the More...

3 comments like (7 people liked it)

Feb 03, 2008

Tripp rated it:

Author Charles Mann's purpose is to debunk three commonly held ideas about the Americas before Columbus: that the continents were sparsely populated, that the social and technical development was limited and that the locals left the environment untouched.

In discussing scholarly debates on these subjects, he convincingly argues that the population, before the decimation of disease, was quite high. The debate is just how many people there were rather than whether the continents were pr More...

2 comments like (11 people liked it)

Dec 26, 2011

Ken-ichi rated it:

In brief: I felt this was an adequate, often fascinating summary of human habitation of the Americas prior to the arrival of Europeans as understood by present-day historians and scientists. I was happy to see that Mann highlighted controversial areas without simply adopting one side of any given controversy, and in general it seemed like a balanced, well-researched book. That said, there were numerous pecadillos.

Mann starts with the basic assertion that the West's primary mistake More...

4 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Ian rated it:

Mann is not a historian, but rather is a journalist. And for that reason, this book does read like a history text (like Guns, Germs, and Steel). But it is exceptionally researched and fantastic.

Mann describes North and South America in a way that traditional textbooks and contemporary rhetoric never acknowledges. He combats the old-fashioned and anti-academic beliefs that pervade our Eurocentric version of world history (summed up in what he calls "Holmberg's Mistake," a re More...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

Jan 03, 2012

Gordon rated it:

Every now and again a book comes along that fundamentally changes my perspective about something big, and this is one of them.

There´s a reason why the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts in 1620 and found the forests nicely felled, the fields already cleared, and caches of food ready to be stolen. The reason: a huge population of Indians had already done the work on their behalf. The reason why hardly any of them were left is that the local population had been reduced More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 24, 2010

Kevin rated it:

A semi-engaging analysis of life before the European discovery of the Americas, and extrapolation from newly discovered information on the depth and breadth of native culture and society pre-contact.

I picked up as this is a subject of cursory interest to me, and I indeed learned a lot. The biggest problem I had with the book was that Mann often used a less than engaging style in his narrative. I sometimes felt like I was reading a textbook, and while I may not necessarily mind th More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 27, 2008

Nick rated it:

Confession: I never finished this, leaving about 50 pages (about 15%)on the table. With non-fiction books that are based around a particular theory I feel like as long as I read enough to internalize the argument and really understand some of the evidence I can stop reading when I get bored. If I missed some revelation on page 420 somebody let me know.

The key takeaway here: American societies were almost certainly older, larger, more technically advanced and more complex than the More...

3 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jan 19, 2007

John rated it:

A very interesting look at pre-Conquest America, containing some relatively new (and far from established) academic theories. The main thesis of the book is that pre-Columbian American societies were far more advanced and populous than recorded by European colonists/invaders/priests. The successive waves of epidemics brought by European contact decimated the Americas to such an extent that these societies caved into anarchy and ruin, which was seen as their original condition by the new arriva More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 11, 2008

Debbie rated it:

Non-fiction writers who produce prose as dry as the Negev should take a leaf out of Mann's highly readable, very enjoyable, and, most important of all, enlightening book.

Mann provides an overview of recent research regarding the extent of city-building and agriculture in North and Meso America in the thousands of years prior to Columbus's arrival in 1492. Exposing the "pristine myth", Mann explores sophisticated societies, methods of agriculture, and writing systems that h More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 03, 2009

Patrick rated it:

Glyptodonts, caliche and zoonotic. Sounds like a law firm hell doesn’t it? Alas, it is only some of the terms Charles Mann digs up discussing pre-Columbian agriculture. (Digs up, get it? Never mind.)

I’ve done my share of wandering the Yucatan. Unlike the civilizations of Rome or Egypt, you just know there is a much more profound mystery surrounding the Maya, Inca and even the North American cultures pre-invasion. Vast cities, astounding architecture, math, astrology and human sacrifi More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 24, 2011

Erik rated it:

Tom Miley told me to read his copy of this book while I was visiting him and his family in San Francisco. It was an excellent suggestion. Rarely have I read a book filled with so much information contrary to what I thought I knew.

1491 basically summarizes recent researches suggesting that the Americas were populated earlier than previously believed, more densely populated than commonly estimated and more widely civilized.

One of the more interesting stories in this book More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 03, 2008

Marie rated it:

The Americas stumbled on by Columbus had more people living in them than were living in Europe, and American societies were at least as complex as any found in Europe. The author surveys the lastest work of anthropologists, archeaologists, and historians demonstrating, among other things, that pre-Columbian Americans had found ways to create soil in the Amazon to assist agriculture, alter crops genetically so they could feed large populations living in cities,trade goods over long distances, ere More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 18, 2008

Paige rated it:

This book is a fascinating window into the cultures of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus. Author Charles Mann, an award-winning writer for Science and The Atlantic Monthly, debunks many widely held notions about the inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere. With a contagious excitement, Mann shares recent discoveries of archeologists, historians and geographers, many of which up-end previously accepted beliefs.

Mann presents new research showing that the population numbers More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 24, 2008

Benjamin rated it:

Excellent collation of research on Indian history that has sparked controversy not only in the discipline of history but sustainable ecology - it trenchantly organizes and presents evidence not completely unknown to myself, but not presented for collective impact on the knowledgeable generalist until now. Viewed as a whole, it cogently elaborates the controversies and agendas driving various parties, Indian and white, archaelologist and environmentalist, seeking to influence not only how people More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 24, 2008

Kenny rated it:

As a result of decades of revisionist history (as well as flat-out incorrect but sincere assumptions by scientists), most people have come to see pre-Columbian America as an Edenic wilderness inhabited by pure-hearted indigenous folk living lightly on the land, leaving nary a footprint outside their biodegradable sweatlodges.

Yet Mann shows us a densely populated, fiercely impacted hemisphere where no one was indigenous (they all came from somewhere else), much of the land repeatedly More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Jun 13, 2009

Alex rated it:

What we think of when we think of the pre-Columbian Americas -- a wilderness lightly occupied by primitive tribes -- was in fact only the tiny remnants of a sophisticated and highly evolved society which had been ravaged by European disease, largely before Europeans could ever make contact with them.

That is the provocative thesis of this thoughtful and thorough look at what existed in this hemisphere before 1491, and what happened to it in 1492. While it sounds like a tired political More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 05, 2008

Dan rated it:

1491 challenged my preconception of American life before it was “discovered” by Columbus. In school I was taught that Indians had minimal impact on the world we know today. The Indians I was told were few in numbers, they were weak as proved by how they were thoroughly conquered by opposing forces a fraction of the population of Indian, they were hunter/gatherers who had no impact on their environment and that as a whole they did not have much of an impact on European society.

The boo More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 21, 2008

John rated it:

I am rethinking my review and giving this the highest rating. This book has really stayed with me in the months since I read it. I'm always a sucker for prehistory stuff, people speculating on history and social structure and motivations for doing things when all you have to go on are oral history and some artifacts but nothing written down. And there is so much we don't know about the Native Americans, even though we act as if we do. This book reminds the reader that we base all our knowledge a More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

May 02, 2008

Nomi rated it:

Highly engaging, interesting and often mind-blowing of account of the civilizations who flourished in North and South "America" before colonialism.Mann does a thorough job of researching the various debates within anthropology/archaelogy regarding issues like the time frame paleo-Indians began migrating through the Americas, the extent and rate at which Natives transformed their landscape, reasons for the decline of various empires like teh Inca, Maya, etc. Very dense and packed with c More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 11, 2008

John rated it:

If your American paradigm includes an historical view of European settlers desecrating the "Forest Primeval," guess again! Recent archeological and anthropological discoveries have revealed that the Pre-Columbrian Americas were vastly more populated and civilized than we had previously believed. For example, Spanish explorers of the 1500s discovered a Mississippi River lined with villages trading up and down the river; French explorers of the 1600s, on the other hand, encountered a hea More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 13, 2008

Sandra rated it:

This is an extremely dense read and tends to drag in the first chapter. However it is a great, basic introduction to various archaeological theories and research about natives cultures in the Americas before Columbus. At times it gets boring reading various scientific research however this helps to explain much of the theories and debates. For example, Mann delves into the theory that European diseases and sickness helped to decimate native populations and goes into DNA and mitochondrial DNA. More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 20, 2008

Deborah rated it:

Full Title: 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

Overall, 1491 provided a fascinating and fresh perspective on history as a lively, evolving field of knowledge--not the stuff of dry textbooks at all. My primary criticism of the book is that it is difficult to keep a sense of chronology without taking notes; the book is divided into different cultures and the research and theories behind their histories--not a chronological ordering of developments in the continents. O More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 15, 2007

Xarah rated it:

It's amazing what people can do. Especially looking back in time and realizing that, in some respects, that past cultures are a whole lot smarter than we are today.

While there was a lot of information in this book I already knew - at least to a degree - there was a lot more detailed information as well as new information about different cultures that I had no idea! It was simply amazing!

I wonder what the world would be like if Columbus never sailed or if Europeans waite More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Oct 12, 2007

korey rated it:

This book is a real eye opener. It is jam packed with great information that goes against pretty much everything we've been taught in school about what North America and South America looked like before Colombus, where the native peoples came from and how many were here and how long ago. It's really facinating and includes lots of pictures and maps (which I love), and the author includes a lot of notes and a huge bibliography. The author does ramble a bit and jumps back and forth between regions More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 19, 2008

Megan rated it:

I am reading this for the second time--in part because it is a great book and in part because we just took a trip to the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico and I wanted to reread the book for that purpose. This is one of my favorite books. It is endlessly fascinating and so historically important. Basically, most of what we learn in school about history of the Americas is wrong or incomplete. This book paints a much broader picture with current scholarship/research and such an easy tone that is a grea More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

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