Product Description

Up until very recently it was believed that in 1491, the year before Columbus landed, the Americas, one-third of the earth's surface, were a near-pristine wilderness inhabited by small, roaming bands of indigenous people. But recently unexpected discoveries have dramatically changed our understanding of Indian Life. Many scholars now argue that the Indians were much more numerous, were in the Americas for far longer, and had far more ecological impact on the land than previously believed. This knowledge has enormous implications for today's environmental disputes, yet little has filtered into textbooks, and even less into public awareness. Mann brings together all of the latest research, and the results of his own travels throughout North and South America, to provide a new, fascinating and iconoclastic account of the Americas before Columbus.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #211717 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 576 pages

Review
'Brilliantly insightful and unsettling book' Paul Muldoon, TLS *'A brilliant and startling exploration of the largely unrecognised great prehistoric cultures of the Americas' Popular Science Review 'Mann rewrites the history of the new world before Columbus. It should be compulsory reading for anyone teaching the history of the Americas' Tribune 'A well- researched and racily written new book... There are few better introductory books on the civilisations of pre- Columbian America, and none so up- to- date' The Spectator 'An immensely valuable book to anyone interested in agriculture and ecology as well as history and archeology. It is also rich in gossip about academic squabbles' Morning Star

About the Author
Charles Mann is the co-author of four books, including The Second Creation: Makers of the Revolution in 20th Century Physics and Noah's Choice: The Future of Endangered Species. He is the correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly and Science magazines, and editorial co-ordinator for the internationally best-selling Material World books. He lives in Massachusetts.

Customer Reviews

Best book I have read for ages
My partner bought me this for my birthday and it is the best present I have ever had. I read it from cover to cover and fell asleep every night reading it. it challenged me to think about my First Nation Euro Racist assumptions. Fantastic. I have gone on to read more and more and challenge my short view of history. Please re\ad this book.

Learning about history from the other side
I learnt an enormous amount about history in the Americas from this book - much of it exploding old myths.

red man good, white man bad
Before Columbus, America was more heavily populated than most historians believe; by bewilderingly diverse and highly sophisticated cultures who arrived 10,000 years before most historians believe.

Never mind that most of these cultures, had they survived, would have us agitating for invasion to quell their barbarous practices. This is a terrific book, and if you don't mind your history being ever so slightly dubious, full of amazing revelations.

I was particularly taken by the "miracle" of maize, which appears to have no clear ancestor in the wild. Also by the truly astonishing, and surely too good to be true, conjecture that the Amazon was once a flourishing arboriculture / horticulture (hence many by-canals which are allegedly straighter than nature would make them). Regrettably, they had no stone and no iron, so it is difficult to say one way or another. But imagine, if the Amazon were "useful" as something other than a carbon sink...

So: best read as fiction, but none the worse for that.