1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann

Aug 25, 2007 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: everyone

Shelves: favorites

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

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Dec 29, 2011 Brendan rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: politics-political-science-history

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) philosophy was as ri...more 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) philosophy was as rich as medieval europe's is ludicrous, especially given that such a huge volume of Aztec codices have been preserved and deciphered. The Aztecs did some respectable philosophical work, but Mann's exaggerations aside, they didn't come close to rivaling the work done in ancient Greece, to say nothing of the subsequent 2,000 years of philosophy in Europe (with a nod towards Middle Eastern contributions as well) that took place between the death of Aristotle and the discovery of the new world. Today, it may be possible to take a mesoamerican philosophy course in some university departments, but there are very few (if any) lasting or novel contributions to the the broader discipline of philosophy to be found in Aztec (or Mayan, or Incan) philosophy. There's no shame in that: it has been said that all philosophy is but a footnote to Plato. So why feel the need to exaggerate and mislead readers by making politically correct assertions that have no basis in reality?

Also, the distinction the author draws between guilt and responsibility (i.e. 'we' should not feel guilty that Cortes introduced smallpox and wiped out 95% of american indians, but 'we' have some responsibility for this) is way too underdeveloped to be taken seriously. I don't necessarily think that the discussion is even necessary, but it is not an uncommon discussion in US politics, and Mann consciously decides to wade into these waters. First, he never defines 'we,' though it seems he means whites of european descent residing in the new world (and maybe Europeans back in Europe who benefitted from mercantilism/colonialism? It's not clear). And then he never explains how responsibility can be justly divided among descendants; how someone of, say, direct Cortez lineage might have a different level of 'responsibility' than a descendant of an Irish family with no seafaring anscestors and no pedigree in the New World until the late 19th century. And if they have the same 'responsibility,' then does a modern day Chinese or Indian immigrant to the new world also have some responsibility? All unclear, and the absence of even any contemplation of these points leaves the book's attempts at constructing a morality of European/American Indian interaction disappointingly hollow. Mann decided the topic was worthy enough to merit some discussion; it is unfortunate he failed to do the topic any justice.(less)

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Mar 25, 2013 Jason Koivu rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, favorites

This was like a coloring book of pre-Pilgrim North America for me in that it filled in a lot of unanswered questions and brilliantly illuminated some areas of my knowledge that were mere outlines. It stays within the lines and makes my early attempts at coloring in the past look like spidery, seizure-induced scrawlings.

Being originally from New England, I'm well aware that there were inhabitants here long before the Europeans arrived. Early on in school we were inundated with stories of Samoset...more This was like a coloring book of pre-Pilgrim North America for me in that it filled in a lot of unanswered questions and brilliantly illuminated some areas of my knowledge that were mere outlines. It stays within the lines and makes my early attempts at coloring in the past look like spidery, seizure-induced scrawlings.

Being originally from New England, I'm well aware that there were inhabitants here long before the Europeans arrived. Early on in school we were inundated with stories of Samoset and Squanto, the first Native Americans to make contact with the Plymouth Colony pilgrims, and how in 1621 they strolled into the transplanted Englishmen's village and a big party broke out, thus began the tradition of Thanksgiving. I was (mis)taught in a Massachusetts classroom where heritage and history are king, so much was made of this. We were led to believe the story by elementary schoolteachers who probably wholeheartedly believed it themselves. What about the Virginia Colony of 1607 and their contact with the native inhabitants? It failed, so sweep it under the rug. Something tells me this version of America's founding by Europeans was not the one being taught in Virginia at the time...

Never was explained how the two natives could speak English (from Englishmen fishing off of the Maine coast and, in Squanto's case, from abduction and internment for seven years in England) or anything that happened in the Americas prior to the pilgrims landing. Oh sure there was talk of Incas and Mayans and their all important maize. But the extent, the sheer size of the native tribes, clans, and cosmopolitan societies of the Americas, north and south, and how Europe brought it all down upon their heads, none of this was discussed. Why? Because even during the late 1970s and early 80s when the movement to turn the Native Americans into mystical caretakers of Mother Earth, there was still a prejudicial sense of 'white is right' prevalent, at least in the neighborhood I grew up in. The other reason is a plain lack of knowledge. My simple teachers simply did not know. They can't wholly be blamed. The information wasn't readily available or flat-out wasn't available. School books were traditional and outdated. The grey-area material was swept under the rug. Now there is less grey-area material - advances in technology and archaeological practices have greatly advanced our knowledge of the past in just a few short decades - but there's still plenty of unknown patches of time in the western hemisphere. In 1491 Mann does not shy away from them.

Having said that, it should be noted that this is not just about North America. No, in fact more time is spent on everything below it. Through discovered texts and deciphered inscriptions there's just more known about Mesoamerica than the other areas, so yes, there are pages upon pages about those Incas and Mayans.

In general what I love about 1491 is that it doesn't take the Indians' side or the Europeans'. It doesn't try to cast a glowing angelic light upon the native inhabitants to transform them into woodland spirits whose only concern was the preservation of the trees and the birds, etc blah blah blah (Earth Day is quaint and misguided, but I digress...), nor does Mann attempt to attack or defend the actions of the Europeans. All is more of a statement of fact or, if lacking concrete evidence, a statement of possibility based on sound theory.

Sure, this distills oceans of scholarly study down to a more manageable duck pond, but it never tries to pretend it is doing otherwise. Mann is no pretender to vaunted erudition. He's a journalist who's done some research. He's a guy who realized his own grade school education was lacking, and when he found out the moldy stuff he was taught way back when was still being taught to his son he decided to do something about it. I'm glad for it.
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Jul 30, 2007 Douglas Hunter rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: readers of history, ethnohistory, First Nations history

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 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 World. (She wholeheartedly supports the "a really, really long time" camp.)
My only critique of 1491, and it is minor, is that the author I feel overstates the case that Europeans (mainly English) did not enjoy a military superiority over the natives, that their powder weapons were ineffective. This is a rather generous reading of native military capability. The English army did away with the longbow in 1598, and for all their problems, powder weapons were a clear advantage. Frenchman Samuel de Champlain used just three harquebus to devastating effect against the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) in 1609, and in his trade and colonization monopoly, secured in 1612 under the Prince de Condé, the terms specifically forbid anyone to trade powder weapons with the natives, under penalty of a 10,000 livre fine and corporal punishment. One of the key factors in European inability not to immediately conquer or eradicate native populations by force was the sheer lack of firepower. (They also needed them as trade partners.) These commercial ventures (English and French in particular) didn't have the full might of their states behind them in the early contact period. Had England or France made up their mind to truly "conquer" these shores and their peoples, they would have marched through them much like de Soto did in the southeastern US in the mid 16th century, for good or for ill (pretty well for ill). But an idea the author does well to advance is the fact that coastal nations or tribes that made contact with the newcomers often came to decide that they should secure a strategic advantage and enlist the newcomers' aid in fighting their own enemies. It was a complicated time, and 1491 is a worthy overview.
Having now finished, I'll still recommend it. For those interested in precontact cultures north of 49 (as in half of North America) the lack of material about French Canada is a little disappointing. There's nothing about the much-debated vanishing of the Iroquoian-speaking residents of the St. Lawrence (at Hochelaga and Stadacona) who were there in large numbers in palisade villages when Cartier first visited in the 1530s, but had vanished utterly by the time Champlain showed up in 1603. But that's nitpicky, considering the enormous scope of this work. (less)

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Aug 13, 2011 Ken-ichi rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: learning, history

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 peccadillos.

Mann starts with the basic assertion that the West's primary mistake in our concep...more

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Aug 27, 2007 Aili rated it 3 of 5 stars

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 Latin America (t...more

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Jan 12, 2009 Bruce rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history

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 western diseases within...more

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Aug 21, 2008 Stefan rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: stopped-reading

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 Aztecs, a...more

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Feb 03, 2008 Tripp rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Non-specialists

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 pristine unocc...more

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Jul 06, 2007 Ian rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: anyone

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 reading I give my studen...more

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Mar 15, 2009 Gordon rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 a few short...more

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Apr 29, 2008 Kevin rated it 2 of 5 stars

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 that sometimes, i...more

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Feb 27, 2008 Nick rated it 3 of 5 stars

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 they are given cred...more

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Jan 19, 2007 John G rated it 4 of 5 stars

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 arrivals...more

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Mar 03, 2009 Patrick Gibson rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: history buffs - and archaeology/anthropology

Shelves: history, truth_sort-of

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 sacrifice—what more...more 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 sacrifice—what more could you ask for? Unfortunately what we know is filtered through the eyes and attitude of European xenophobia.

This treatise is designed to change the idea that the Americas before Columbus was a vast wilderness populated by inconsequential natives easily ignored. In fact, when ‘the Italian from Spain’ did show up, the population was equal if not greater than that of Europe—perhaps in the tens of millions.

The scope is vast, the research detailed—combining recent sociological statistics with legend and scholarship from an array of sources. This is the first ‘chunk’ of information I have read on the civilizations of the Mississippi flood plain and how the massive earth mounds correlate, in a way, to the Anasazi. Very interesting. The author also goes into detail on the cat-fights emanating from other experts in the field—a little like Jared Diamonds “Collapse.”

Mann takes into account the immense sweep of geological time and the empires that have come and gone in only a span of twenty millennia and the seemingly abrupt changes that have occurred to so many. There are fascinating tales of places like the great Inca city of Tenochtitlan—in its heyday, it was larger than Paris—and Tawantinsuyu on the shore of Lake Titicaca in the high Andes, a marvel of architecture and economic prosperity.

His prose is concise but sometimes overly technical. As he connects the dots of cultural myths between the Colorado Plateau (particularly the Hopi) and those of Central Peru some amazing revelations emerge.

This makes an excellent companion to “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed” with a lot less gloom and doom. Skip about seventy-five pages in the middle. You’ll know when.
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May 12, 2012 Kirk Lowery rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history

I had no idea that pre-Columbian American scholarship was so contentious and politicized. The accounts of scholars and scientists attacking one another in personal ways reminds me of my own discipline. I guess it is the function of the emotional investment people make. In this case it is the political issues and agendas of environmentalists and "native" American groups and advocates.

Frankly, I got lost amid all the unfamiliar names and locations. The author jumps all around mesoamerica, south an...more

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Apr 25, 2012 Alex Telander rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-read-in-2012

If I were to ask you what you know on the subject of the people that lived in the Americas before the arrival of Columbus and how they got there, you’d likely tell me they came over from Asia during the last ice age and proceeded to populate North, Central and South America in their small numbers and lived a nominal existence, traveling in tribes, forming their small civilizations, such as the Incas, Aztecs and Mayans, which eventually disappeared and then their lives were changed for the better...more If I were to ask you what you know on the subject of the people that lived in the Americas before the arrival of Columbus and how they got there, you’d likely tell me they came over from Asia during the last ice age and proceeded to populate North, Central and South America in their small numbers and lived a nominal existence, traveling in tribes, forming their small civilizations, such as the Incas, Aztecs and Mayans, which eventually disappeared and then their lives were changed for the better when Columbus arrived in 1492, and brought the western world of civilization to the Americas. Charles C. Mann noted essentially this when he read his son’s history books and saw that the supposed accurate history hadn’t changed since he’d been in high school, which didn’t seem right. And so began years of research and learning that has gone on to change the way the western world sees the history of the Americas pre-Columbus. While the book was revolutionary when it was released, went on to win awards and make a lot of “best of” lists, there is still a lot of educating of the world to be done with this true history; hopefully this book will help that cause.

In 1491 Mann seeks to reveal the last thirty years of archaeological and anthropological research and discoveries with the hope that it will change and alter all the commonly held assumptions mentioned above. He does this in a well thought out way, revealing all the evidence and theory on particular subjects, like the whole population of people in the Americas, as well as the sizes and extents of the various empires that formed, and then proving what is the correct one and why, such as the astonishing fact that in 1491 there were likely more people living in the Americas than in Europe! He goes into detail on the Aztec and Mayan civilizations, revealing their true extensiveness and reach and the affect they had on the people, their development and knowledge, and simple things, like why they had invented the wheel but didn’t use it as a means of transportation, because the rocky or jungle terrain made traveling by wheel wouldn’t be inefficient. As to the supposed fact that the peopling of the Americas took place around twelve or thirteen thousand years ago with the Bering Strait land bridge, the evidence says otherwise, with some pointing to the mere existence of the peoples in the Americas before this period, as well as the crucial cutoff date with the end of the ice age not correctly coinciding with the people reaching South America according to the timeline; basically the evidence simply proves otherwise.

By the end of the book, the reader has come to the incredible realization that most of what they learned in school about the Americas is completely wrong, and that this supposedly undiscovered continent went on to do amazing things for the rest of the world, such as providing it with three-fifths of the world’s grown goods, including corn (or maize), peppers, potatoes, tomatoes and squash. In fact the term “new world” may have been somewhat of a misnomer, as it seems possible the settling of the Americas may have happened before western civilization.

Much as Guns, Germs and Steel was revolutionary in changing our outlook on the way the world is, 1491 has the same affect on how the world views the Americas, what its true history was, the immense effect it had on the world after Columbus, and how the idea that these people were simple and primitive is just ridiculous. The book is by no means an easy read, but once the reader makes it through, the fulfillment is well worthwhile and enlightening to say the least.

Originally written on March 17, 2012 ©Alex C. Telander.

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Aug 24, 2011 Erik Graff rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Americans

Recommended to Erik by: Tom Miley

Shelves: history

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 is about the civilization(...more

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Nov 03, 2008 Marie rated it 4 of 5 stars

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

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Sep 18, 2008 Paige rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, nonfiction, narrative-nonfiction

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 of America’s Fi...more

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Jul 24, 2008 Benjamin rated it 5 of 5 stars

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 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 view the history of the Americas prior to 1491, but the future, too. Easily the most incendiary critique originates in his presentation of evidence suggesting that, contra to myths of primeval landscapes unblemished by man that originated in the wake of demographic collapse, all of the Americas, including the Amazon, swarmed with peoples that managed and altered the landscape to their desires. This conceit undermines the supposition that a human presence in environments like the Amazon can only prove deleterious - while the evidence suggests that the Amazon, along with other environments, were thrown out kilter in the massive die off of Indian populations that managed them for their own use. The populations encountered in later epochs of intense European settlement, relatively savage and few in number, should not be considered definitive iterations of Indian culture and accomplishment anymore than Rome's medieval squalor in wake of the Empire's collapse should be considered the sum total of Rome's achievement. Mann instead recontextualizes them as the indomitable but traumatized remnnants of cultures and peoples immolated by small pox, typhoid, and other diseases to the point that they could not sustain their former way of life, leading to ecologocal disruption across the Americas and altering a formerly human managed landscape into the "primeval continent of forest" encountered by British colonists so influential in shaping America's image not only of itself, but of its Indian peoples, even as the myth continues to exert influence on America's vigorous environmental movement. This book explores far more of interest than I could ever present, but hopefully this little salvo grants some intimation of what awaits the curious reader.(less)

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Jul 24, 2008 Kenny rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: amateur historians

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 went up in s...more 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 went up in smoke in a slash-and-burn regime designed to remake it for man, plants, and animals alike (a good portion of the Amazon rainforest itself is said to be the result of human intervention, planting, and control over millenia), sculpted in incredibly huge and aggressive ways (terrace farming in Peru, the literal creation of the Great Plains in north America by the "Indians," giant figures carved into the dirt seen in their complete form only from the air in the Andes), with vast, heavy-handed populations (many ancient cities in the Americas were not only contemporaneous with those in Europe, they were larger, cleaner, and better managed).

The result is that Columbus brought steel and smallpox to the Americas, decimating the local populations through war and disease, which perhaps wiped out as much as 90% of the entire human population of the hemisphere in just a few years. Columbus' men received syphillis in return, and cannot be blamed for the smallpox (no one even knew how disease was transmitted back then). They can also be excused from attempting to dominate the local cultures. After all, that is what the Inka, Maya, Olmec, and a score of other civilizations Mann discusses in the book had been doing to each other for nigh onto 10,000 years. The only difference is that we have the history of the conquest (thanks to the Spaniards themselves), not just a few worn sandstone steles covered in vines to place the popular blame on the Euro-conquerors.

What happened in the Americas happened everywhere else in the world by people no different from those they found in the western hemisphere. Thus it has always been and likely thus it will always be.

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Jun 13, 2009 Alex rated it 4 of 5 stars

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 politically correct,...more 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 politically correct, multi-culturalal revisionism, it isn't -- it's a fascinating and honest search for a clear-eyed history of the continent. It is also a sweeping, well-research chronicle of the macro elements that mold history --- in the spirit of Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel." Not only will it change the way you look at America's history, but it will change your view of how history unfolds.

Aside from the history of the various empires which existed in pre-Columbian America -- Mayans, Azteks, Incans, and many you've never heard of -- Mann also looks at the biology, technology, and anthropology behind the history. Among some interesting points he hits on are the development of corn (the first feat of genetic engineering, he claims), why Indians were so vulnerable to European germs (it's more complicated than you think), and how Indian culture influenced the development of the colonies and, he alleges, American ideas of freedom and democracy.

Mann isn't an academic, and he largely is just collecting information that other scientists have uncovered. The purpose of the book is not to uncover new facts, but to gather them in a way they haven't before to show how the newest available research so vividly contradicts our ingrained ideas about how the Americas were settled.

That said, Mann is sometimes a bit too zealous in pushing his case, occassionally making leaps in logic that aren't backed up with the evidence. He also could have spent more time dealing with some of the reactions non-academics would have reading the book. I had some fairly unsophisticated questions myself -- "Hey, if the Indians were so well-developed, why weren't there any huge cities in the north?" "If they were so technological, why didn't they 'discover' Europe?"

But the bottom line is, this book is a must for anyone interested in the world's history. Highly recommended.(less)

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Jul 05, 2008 Dan rated it 4 of 5 stars

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 book challenges...more 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 book challenges these misconceptions with current archaeological findings. This book gathers much of contemporary research describing the day-to-day lives, their intellectual progress and the manipulation of the environment. For example, it is now apparent that these societies developed sophisticated farming methods from the tip of South America to the high mountains of the Andes. The Amazon that I have been led to believe is a virgin forest, has actually been manipulated by its inhabitants to grow the type of food that they needed and vast swath of forest were converted to this use. We find that these peoples build complex societies before civilizations began appearing in the Fertile Crescent by the Tigris River.

The contact between the Settlers in North America and the Algonquin Nation may even have contributed to the type of government that the USA has today.

1491 is well written and well sourced. The author knows that some of the conclusions are controversial, and he makes a point to include both the archeological evidence for and against these. Some of the conclusions that are presented by the author are still being challenged by well-respected archeologists. On some conclusions that the author supports more evidence needs to be gathered before they are definitely accepted. But on other theories, such as the reasons for the precipitous decline of the Indian population, the author shows that based on the current evidence the only likely conclusions that one can infer is that the Indians were the victims of waves of epidemic of organisms which the Indians had no defenses.

Good book.

A review can be found here:

http://dir.salon.com/story/books/revi...

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Nov 21, 2008 John rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: history buffs

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 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 about Indian tribes on what they were like when we managed to really sit down and chat with them starting in the mid 1600's on the east coast and really the 1700's for the interior, and we didn't know much about the western tribes even by Lewis and Clark, in 1802. But the european contact affected them much earlier. You can see that even with tribes like the Wampanoag, who the Pilgrims met. The Pilgrims had time to sit in their villages and really write about what they were like, but by that point they had been trading with Europeans for almost a hundred years, european goods were ingrained in their society, and the first waves of disease had already arrived via fishing boats. The society was very different from what it had originally been. And so with plains tribes, this was even more of a big deal. A tribe like the cheyenne or sioux, let's say. We really don't record anything about them until the 1800s. But they started getting things from us, not only traded goods but also diseases, in the 1500s. They traded with tribes who traded with tribes who traded with the spanish. That's 300 years of change! It's not that far fetched to think that maybe in 1830 some of these nomadic plains tribes were living in tipis and surviving only on what they could hunt because 150 years ago their societies were decimated by disease and they were forced to become nomadic hunter-gatherers. But what we learn in school is only what we can prove: the Cheyenne were a small tribe of hunter-gatherers that lived a meager existence on the plains, subsisting mostly on buffalo. This makes it sound like they were always FAR behind the europeans, which might not have been true.
Another interesting theory. Remember learning about the thundering herds of buffalo, millions strong, dominating the plains. You just figure it must have always been like that, until the europeans came along. But we ignore that the dominant predator for the buffalo was the native american. And European diseases caused possibly 75% of the native american population to die, round about 1700. So what we really saw in the 1800s was a massive population surge of buffalo, because the only people eating them had vanished.
Plus there's all kinds of great writing in here about how advanced the Incans were how they may have had a written language after all, but using knots on rope, which is really cool when you think about it. I think people would find history a lot more interesting if they talked about this kind of stuff in school. Maybe it's just me. (less)

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May 02, 2008 Nomi rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

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 cool trivia...more

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Apr 11, 2008 John Williams rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: History buffs and non-fiction fans

Recommended to John by: no one

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 heavily fores...more

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May 13, 2008 Sandra rated it 2 of 5 stars

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. Th...more

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Jan 20, 2008 Deborah rated it 5 of 5 stars

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. Of the many u...more 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. Of the many useful illustrations, I'm surprised a standard time line was not included.

Having read Charles C. Mann's 1491 and Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel back to back, I'm inclined to favor Mann's book over Diamond's. Although it's probably not fair to compare them in this manner, I actually set up a spreadsheet comparing differences in suggested dates for pre-Colombian historical events in the Americas, along with theories to explain them. (I should note that Mann actually cites two of Diamond's books, and not from a position of disparagement. It's just tempting for me to compare these books because of their proximity to one another on my reading list, so indulge me!)

Mann's book has the advantage of being written a decade after that of Diamond, and while some of the "new revelations" are fifty or more years old, some of them are very, very new--having been revealed within the last few years, or in some cases, still in the research stage. This time gap makes Diamond's assertions about the Americas seem more conservative and dated than they probably were at the time of publication. (One exciting revelation became apparent just last year, missing the cutoff for both books--pre-Colombian chicken bones from Polynesian chickens were found in South America, proving that Polynesians arrived in South America before European explorers! While both books referenced the theory that Polynesian watercraft may have reached the Americas, Diamond expressed more skepticism than Mann.)

The other factor which made me favor Mann's book over Diamond's was that the former is written from a journalistic viewpoint, whereas the latter is written with the intent to persuade the reader to believe the author's central theory. That isn't to say that Mann's writing is disinterested or dispassionate; his writing is sprinkled with praise and criticism of the various accounts of pre-Colombian life in the Americas he selected for inclusion in his book. Diamond, on the other hand, tries to weave the histories of all the populated continents into parallel narratives--narratives in which the losers are defeated by the guns, germs, and steel of the winners, and then he explains why he thinks the winners happened upon their tools of victory before the losers could acquire them.(less)

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Nov 15, 2007 Xarah rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Everybody

Shelves: non-fiction

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 waited to come to the America...more

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