Product Description

In AD 1492, Christopher Columbus stumbled across the Americas while searching for a route to the spice rich Orient. This was a unique moment in world history, akin to an encounter with alien species in our own time. What Columbus, and his successors encountered was an unsuspected continent, a New World, full of civilizations strangely different from European societies in their languages, appearances, institutions, religions, architecture and ideas of life and death. From the great empires of the Aztecs in Mexico and the Inkas in Peru, to their innumerable prehistoric ancestors, and the mosaic of tribes living in highland valleys and tropical rainforests, the evidence pointed to a phenomenon of human culture which had developed in isolation from the rest of the world for at least 20,000 years. Pre-Columbian America represents a singular example of the human genius for creating civilization. Through a stimulating account of the major civilizations in Mesoamerica and the Andes, this book aims not only to give state-of-the-art syntheses of each culture, but also to build a living picture of the fundamentally different nature of indigenous Amerindian societies.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #503873 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

About the Author
Nicholas J. Saunders is a leading authority on Ancient America. For over twenty years he has been engaged in research and teaching on Pre-Columbian civilizations, specializing in art and symbolism. He has organized international conferences and has published many academic and general articles and books.

Customer Reviews

Attempted Overview of Central & S. American "Pre-History"
The book appears to set out to be a story of the the Pre-Columbian civilisations of Central and South America, a rather daunting task. However the detail that is included gets in the way of the story. Various tribes appear on the scene without any previous hint of their existence; this is all very well if one is a historian of the area but most readers will not be. It seems that the decoration on ceramics is more important than the politics and economics of the historical progression - sad really.