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Loading... 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (edition 2006)by Charles C. Mann
Work details1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann
 Caomhghin | May 13, 2013 |  I loved 1491, a compelling survey of what we now think we know about North and South America before the Europeans showed up. The news (to those of us who grew up hearing about how the Indians were mostly a scattering of bands of hunter-gatherers living in harmony with nature) is that the place was crowded with fairly sophisticated cultures. The reason Europeans forgot that is that shortly after Columbus's arrival, European travelers managed to infect Native Americans with devastating plagues that killed off up to 95% of their people -- possibly due to genetic bottlenecks from the crossing of the Bering Strait. You try keeping your sophisticated culture operating with 19 out of 20 people dead. It is full of surprising info, e.g., the Pilgrims weren't the first Northern Europeans (not counting the Vikings) to try to settle in New England; they were just the first the Indians didn't chase off. (  ) AlexEpstein | May 12, 2013 | I was excited to read this, and fascinated by the history, but there have been a couple of annoying aspects to the book that have caused me to lose interest in the subject and faith in the scholarship of the author about two-thirds of the way through. After getting me hooked with a compelling description of the mysterious Beni landscape, the first third or so of the book proceeds to be about POST-1491, i.e. mostly about what the various early europeans found when they arrived in the Americas, all the diseases brought and wars they wrought blah blah blah... I've read this all before, this is not what I signed up for; there may be good reason for him to use this a comparative measure of what had actually been there decades/centuries before, but edit it down, and put it the intro, or title your book something else! He does come back to the Beni, but only briefly, and as with the other descriptions of the early indians, it's a bit scattered. Nevertheless, there is enough fascinating stuff in this book to make it worth slogging through the entire thing (for instance the ecology of Amazonia, and the author's thesis about the NE indian tribes'lifestyles and culture affecting what we think of as our current "american" values). (  ) lxydis | May 11, 2013 | This is one of the best books I have read. And so well written. I remember at the time of the 500th anniversary of Columbus' voyage in 1992, exciting new historical information was made public, notably the Columbian exchange of flora and fauna between continents. I remember, however, at the time, political influences cringed at celebrating Europeans taking over the Americas, so that the planned year of commemorative events was not much publicized after its initial introduction. Fortunately, time and additional studies have educated enough people to replace that outdated reaction with an interest in the science and history that actually happened. The most fascinating topics in [1491] to me were how the Indians all over the Americas used ecological methods to modify the land to meet their needs, building artificial land to live on, creating rich soil where the soil had been barren, creating the Amazon rainforest, creating maize, creating "the forest primeval" in North America--which had only been in place for a few hundred years when the Europeans arrived. The list goes on and on. It also includes unsuccessful man-made changes. The appendices are each of considerable interest on their own. A small note: this book doesn't mention, but explains the astonishment of Henry Hudson's crew upon seeing Mannahatta for the first time as so excitingly described in [Gotham]. ( ) Diane-bpcb | Apr 18, 2013 | A very interesting look at what specialists have learned about the cultures and civilizations of the Americas in the pre-Columban period. Who knew that breeding edible maize was such an achievement for example? I have new respect for American Indian accomplishments, and for the misrepresentations about them that abound in our society, thanks to this book. ( ) nmele | Apr 6, 2013 | no reviews | add a review
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Wikipedia in English (44)
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Thesis 2 is that the population of pre-Columbian Americas was way in excess of most of the figures suggested so that instead of being a heavily underpopulated continent it was, at least in places, on a par with anywhere in Eurasia at the time. The indigenes were nearly wiped out on an enormous scale, mostly by diseases for which they had no immunity. It is certainly true that the trope of the empty continent underutilised by its inhabitants just waiting to be properly exploited by intrepid European settlers is nonsense. Before the Pilgrim Fathers arrived the area was teeming with large villages whose people used all the land’s resources and lived very well. They were mostly empty villages by the time Mayflower arrived – just as well as the settlers survived to a large extent by scavenging from the deserted villages. They had no idea how to ‘exploit’ the land and nearly starved. There are other reports of populous centres in the Midwest and Amazonia, teeming with prosperous and highly developed inhabitants. The next European visit would find an emptiness inhabited by a few hunter-gatherer ‘savages’ whose societies had collapsed. It is possible that the majority, if not all, of today’s Amazonian Indians are descendants of sophisticated farmers who lived in or near large urban centres. This would mean that much of the Amazon forest is, to some extent, man-made. As in his other theses Mann presents his case by selecting a small number of very clear and very well documented sites and presenting the documented evidence and the latest archaeological findings.
Thesis 3 junks the ‘ecological myth’ of the Indians living lightly on the land. No they managed it extensively using all the available resources just like other civilisations. They used slash and burn extensively for instance but they also developed corn which was an amazing botanical feat apparently.
Mann doesn’t overpush his theses. He is good at citing sources if rather journalistic in the way he does it. A lot of the points he makes are now widely accepted but not widely known so it is a revolutionary book in so far as it spreads this new knowledge very well.