1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

1491 sets out with the thesis that there is a lot more to "American History" than what is covered in high school textbooks. Throughout the course of the book Mann lays down wide-ranging evidence that the people and societies that occupied the Americas before Europeans arrived were much more complex than historians and the general population have traditionally given them credit for. Mann argues that with an anywhere from five to fifteen thousand year (and perhaps even more) head-start, the peoples of the Americas developed and cultivated cities, monuments and complete ways of life that rivaled, and at times bested, anything their contemporary European (and Asian) counterparts had to offer.

Mann's 1491 successfully argues that there was much more to the societies of the pre-Columbian Americas than has been traditionally thought as well as taught. The research that Mann put into this book through the course of many years is clear and apparent.

Where Mann lacked in this book was in detail. I believe his primary argument would have been better served -- that pre-Columbian cultures were much more sophisticated and complex than generally believed -- if he had reduced his number of examples and expounded further on selected cases.

However, because this book is so clearly well-researched, I would suggest it to anyone interested in the societies of the pre-Columbian Americas.

Mann's book, while entertaining, is nothing more than speculative revisionism. The book does not read very easily because it jumps around from one topic to the next without warning frequently. Mann's intentions may have been good, but it doesn't excuse the fact that you can't rewrite history simply to promote an idealistic view of native cultures based on circumstantial evidence. He offers no hard facts to promote his patronizing image of Native American civilizations prior to Europeanization. Nonetheless I enjoyed the book because it does offer some new or "fresh" perspectives into Native American cultures prior to (but mainly after) 1492, but I treated it more as fictional entertainment rather than an authentic historical account.

This book really teaches you some things you may not have learned while you where in high school, or maybe even in college especially if you are older than the age of 25-30. Some of the lessons taught are of finding information that some of the ancient Mesoamerican civilizations wher actually quite large and elaborate. Some had flowing water and others where the size of if not larger than Paris, France at the same time. If you enjoy history you will enjoy this book, if you are not into history this book is probably not for you.

I liked the author's story but I can't believe all the things that he assumes for what was happening in the Americas before 1492.

Back in the 1980s I picked up a book off my father's shelf that caught my eye and read it through: "Indian New England Before the Mayflower" by Howard Russell. This book was massively researched the way David McCullough would research a book: every account left by early explorers and observers was read; every reference in regional or local histories or archaeological writings was examined; every New England museum or known archaeological site was visited and informed people interviewed. I was impressed by the scholarship and came away convinced that the Native Americans were far more advanced than we have been led to believe in the typical American History book.

Thus I was not surprised by the content of "1491," which takes the same thesis and expands upon it to cover the entire New World. Charles Mann has researched his book nearly as extensively as Russell - in fact it comes as no surprise that Russell's book is cited as a source for "1491." As an aside I am puzzled by some of the one star reviews that imply "1491" has not been adequately researched - there is a 50 page note section at the back, followed by a 58 page bibliography citing, and I am not making this up, well over 1000 scholarly sources. Such comments make me question whether the writers of such reviews even have copies of the book in their possession, or are they simply launching negative reviews for some ulterior motive.

And this would make sense, because the material IS controversial. The idea that the white man is responsible for the deaths of millions of people does not sit well politically with some folks, who perhaps believe it is somehow an indictment of them, or the United States, or maybe democracy. Who knows? Whatever the reason, there is a school of thought devoted toward minimizing estimates of the Native American population prior to the arrival of Columbus, and minimizing their level of cultural advancement. Perhaps it is more palatable to think that there were only a few pesky savages around and we brought them order and civilization, versus contemplating the possibility that we may have erased an entire hemisphere's worth of civilization. To put this in perspective, imagine a scenario where the New World inhabitants had progressed faster than the Old World, and that huge invasion fleets from Central America began appearing off the European coast and the Mediterranean at the time of the Roman Empire. Imagine if these "Indians" arrived with a suite of diseases lethal to the native Europeans, and possessing technology several centuries ahead of the Romans. Imagine Europe enduring the Black Death five times over, and then waves of "Indians" coming to inhabit the now collapsed and abandoned Roman Empire and slightly less civilized areas surrounding it in Germany or Eastern Europe. Mann presents a good case that this kind of scenario is far more likely to have occurred in the New World when the Europeans arrived than the one we have all been told in American History books.

Regarding the population of pre-Columbian America, for every researcher who claims a low, less dense population, Mann shows that there are other researchers who estimate the population to be ten times higher. We will probably never know. In my opinion, and to his credit, Mann provides a balanced view of this debate, citing both sides, and then weighs in with his assessment (which is more in line with the "high" side). Again, I tend to think he presents a pretty convincing argument.

It is also clear that the idea that Native Americans consisted of small bands of stone age savages frolicking in the woods cannot possibly be true. We all know this intuitively just from the "Pilgrim" story. We all know how the Indians taught the Pilgrims how to farm - how to grow corn and squash and beans and how to fertilize and tend these crops - we've all heard the story of "Squanto." So if the Indians were a bunch of Stone Age savages living in tepees in the woods - how is that they knew more about farming than the Pilgrims? If they were that knowledgeable about farming, doesn't that imply that they had settled into agricultural communities? What do we make of the reports from early European explorers of large villages and even small cities surrounded by square miles of farms? The Pilgrims basically occupied the abandoned Indian town that was situated at Plymouth (it was abandoned because the inhabitants had been decimated by disease), and the early accounts describe it as a full-scale village with streets and large wooden buildings. Kind of like Iowa, only without satellite TV or football teams.

And these are descriptions of the Indians living far from the major population centers and urbanized areas in central America.

All in all, Mann presents a compelling argument that America was a far different place in 1491 than most of us realize. A fascinating account, and definitely a must-read for anyone interested in history.