"History" of America pre Columbus. It may be that the population
was comparable with that of Europe, but the bulk of it was wiped
out by disease before the Europeans arrived in significant numbers. (Whether this si true
is certainly an important question.) ( )

Highly recommended, at times romanticized, but always informative popular history that tells the story of pre-columbian America. ( )

For me this was a mind-opening account of the cultures of America before Columbus. ( )

1491 is a very enjoyable non-fiction book. Charles Mann tackles a subject that’s both big enough, and fresh enough, to immerse the interested reader from start to finish: what was the ‘new world’ of the western hemisphere really like in pre-Columbian days? Was it a sparsely-populated wilderness, dominated by ‘nature’ and traveled lightly by bands of low-impact nomads? Or were the complex urban societies such as the Maya and the Inca more typical?

Mann moves back and forth between broad historical narration and on-the-spot reportage of recent archaeological and anthropological research projects. His style for both is engaging, informative without being dull, and generally judicious.

Mann’s only flaw is his weakness for politically-correct digs at European civilization. This isn’t a big problem – he’s not a complete breast-beating apologizer – but he occasionally throws in remarks that really sound stupid if you stop to think about them, e.g. that the civilizations of the Americas were disadvantaged in comparison to Europeans because the latter had other advanced cultures such as China and the Islamic world from whom they could ‘steal’ all of their ideas.

Still, I’d highly recommend this one. It’s a fun and genuinely eye-opening read. ( )

An absolute eye-opener. Especially from someone like me who reflexively thinks from an American point of view. When I think "Indian" I think Crazy Horse and Tecumseh. It's as if the Aztecs and Inca are not even in the same category as the Sioux and Shawnee.

No doubt, I'll take western civilization as imported from Europe over anything else. But we delude ourselves in thinking that those here before us were not civilized in any meaningful way. I really appreciated the parts of the book detailing the native peoples' deliberate impact on the environment (e.g. changing the course of a river in Missouri). Anything historical information that combats the silly idea that the Indians lived in perfect harmony with the environment and we evil, white Europeans came and mucked it all up is welcome to me.

I learned A LOT, and sadly, found that much of what I was taught in school by teachers I truly cherish is just plain wrong. I hope that today's students have teachers who read this book and teach the facts as we now know them. ( )