1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus

By Charles C. Mann

1491 is an eye-opening look at the western hemisphere immediately before it changed forever.  In a well-researched but extremely readable narrative, Mann details the complex structures of several native societies at the moment before Europeans brought their steel weapons and their germ-filled blankets.  Most readers know how the European “conquerors” imposed their paradigms of punishing religions, rigid political frameworks, and utter disdain for the great civilizations which had flourished for thousands of years before the so-called “discovery”.  Mann brings to life a world that simply vanished after 1492.

It has been thought and taught that in the Western hemisphere, a sparse population of Native “Indians” lived in a static state of ignorance, indigence, and mind-numbing sameness of days.  Mann’s book explores the rich culture and ingenious technologies of Native Americans.  Inkas and Aztecs built wonderful irrigation systems, sewers for waste, cities with four-story buildings; they raised beautiful pyramids the stones of which were laid with such precision that not even a piece of paper could be inserted between two of them.  Machu Picchu, located high (8,000 feet) on a mountain in Peru, is built of enormous stones that were somehow transported up the mountain to the site. Today, aided by oxygen tanks and modern conveniences, many physically fit tourists still cannot make it to the summit because of the thin air.  How then, were the huge stones hauled and placed with so-called primitive technology? 

With the arrival of Europeans and European diseases, ancient people whose civilizations had endured and progressed were wiped off the face of the earth in just a few years.  Mann, a science writer, addresses several of the current historical/anthropological controversies concerning the “pre-discovery” period, among which are questions about the true population density of the Americas in 1491, the beginning date of human occupation of the Western hemisphere, and the level of sophistication of the societies that flourished at that period.   

Mann has painted a fascinating picture of the Americas as they were.  Turning traditional history and anthropology upside down, questioning accepted doctrine, blasting away at entrenched perceptions, he has written a wonderfully readable, terrifically informative narrative which engages the reader from page one.