1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
Product Description
Read by Peter Johnson Based on the latest scientific findings, this breakthrough book argues that most of what we thought we knew about the Americas before Columbus was wrong. In the last 20 years, archaeologists and anthropologists equipped with new scientific techniques have made far-reaching discoveries about the Americas. For example, Indians did not cross the Bering Strait 12,000 years ago, as most of us learned in school. They were already here. Their numbers were vast, not few. And instead of living lightly on the land, they managed it beautifully and left behind an enormous ecological legacy. In this riveting, accessible work of science, Charles Mann takes us on an enthralling journey of scientific exploration. We learn that the Indian development of modern corn was one of the most complex feats of genetic engineering ever performed. That the Great Plains are a third smaller today than they were in 1700 because the Indians who maintained… More >>
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
I’v read some boring books before but this one takes the cake. I couldn’g even finish it. It jumped around from one time period and civilization to another. I love history, but I couldn’t even remember any significant event that stood out in the book.
“Mann is well aware that much of the history he relates is *necessarily* speculative.” This says it all: speculation = non-scientific/unreliable. And I starred the term “necessarily” because it describes the author’s own view that he is consciously aware of writing what in all honesty is fiction.
Pre-Columbian Indian societies were, for the most part, made up of stone-age hunter gatherers. The few who made it to urban God-king organizations, Aztecs, Incas, were interesting but bizarre. Sacrificing 16,0000 humans at a religious ceremony by cutting out their beating hearts and feasting on their bodies is more than just a curiosity. This book is just another in a long line of guilt-ridden nonsense(see Diamond and his germs). Instead read Thomas Sowell on Conquests for a balanced view.
And that one truth is that the Indians were not sitting around singing songs and building tools, but in fact were more destructive to the environment than anyone that came after them. It does not matter though because now we have people flying airplanes into buildings so it makes anything that happened in this part of history seem pretty mundane.
A well written work that explains where early natives came from
and how they lived. The european invasion destroyed these civilizations much like all invasions of other cultures do. Moderm science will continue to tell us more.