1491

New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

By: Charles C. Mann

Narrated by: Darrell Dennis

A groundbreaking study that radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans in 1492.

Traditionally, Americans learned in school that the ancestors of the people who inhabited the Western Hemisphere at the time of Columbus' landing had crossed the Bering Strait 12,000 years ago; existed mainly in small nomadic bands; and lived so lightly on the land that the Americas were, for all practical purposes, still a vast wilderness. But as Charles C. Mann now makes clear, archaeologists and anthropologists have spent the last 30 years proving these and many other long-held assumptions wrong.

In a book that startles and persuades, Mann reveals how a new generation of researchers equipped with novel scientific techniques came to previously unheard-of conclusions. Among them:

• In 1491 there were probably more people living in the Americas than in Europe.
• Certain cities - such as Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital - were far greater in population than any contemporary European city. Furthermore, Tenochtitlán, unlike any capital in Europe at that time, had running water, beautiful botanical gardens, and immaculately clean streets.
• The earliest cities in the Western Hemisphere were thriving before the Egyptians built the great pyramids.
• Pre-Columbian Indians in Mexico developed corn by a breeding process so sophisticated that the journal Science recently described it as "man's first, and perhaps the greatest, feat of genetic engineering".
• Amazonian Indians learned how to farm the rain forest without destroying it - a process scientists are studying today in the hope of regaining this lost knowledge.
• Native Americans transformed their land so completely that Europeans arrived in a hemisphere already massively "landscaped" by human beings.

Mann sheds clarifying light on the methods used to arrive at these new visions of the pre-Columbian Americas and how they have affected our understanding of our history and our thinking about the environment. His book is an exciting and learned account of scientific inquiry and revelation.

©2016 Charles C. Mann (P)2016 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"In the tradition of Jared Diamond and John McPhee, a transforming new vision of pre-Columbian America." (Richard Rhodes)

"Every American knows it was a vast new world that Columbus found in 1492, and most imagine it was a thinly peopled paradise of plants, animals, and hunter-gatherers waiting for civilization. The reality, Charles C. Mann tells us in his startling new book about the world before Columbus, is very different - two continents teeming with languages, cultures, and mighty cities as big, as rich, and even more populous than the capitals of Europe." (Tom Powers)

"Charles C. Mann takes us into a complex, fascinating, and unknown world, that of the Indians who lived in this hemisphere before Columbus. He gently demolishes entrenched myths, with impressive scholarship, and with an elegance of style which that makes his book a pleasure to read as well as a marvelous education." (Howard Zinn)

Bad narrator

Narrator ruined this for me, the book is good though. I just couldn’t get past the narrator making everything sound dumb

The New Old World

I don’t have access to my grade school history books, but I don’t remember there being anything about the history of Native Americans (which I will call “Indians” in this review because that’s the term the book uses) other than some instances where there was contact with the European settlers. I remember hearing about the Indians who saved the Puritans from starving and who celebrated Thanksgiving with them. I remember Pocohantas and hearing that the Cherokees did have a written language. I remember the Trail of Tears, but I think I remember that from my visits to the Great Smoky Mountains, not necessarily from the history books. Then there were a few of the great western battles and some of the famous names on both sides including Crazy Horse, Custer, Geronimo, and Cochise. I remember the Mayan pyramids and human sacrifice and the room filled with gold in Peru and the conquistadors who brutally killed them. Of course, there was certainly a little more than that and this may be more of an indication of how little attention I paid in history class, but I am certain that there was not much more. I also now know that some of what I remember is not exactly true or was greatly skewed (history is written by the victors) and was certainly not the whole story. But even given that, that’s not history. That’s happenstance. It’s kind of like saying that I know the family history of the man who lives a couple of blocks away and whom I talk to occasionally when I go biking. 

The fact is that the real history of the Americas–the two continents, not the nation that goes by the shortened name of America–before the Europeans arrived has been mostly unknown. Part of that is because most Indians (not all) didn’t have a system of writing and didn’t write their history down, but it’s mostly because most Europeans didn’t think there was much that was worth knowing. The good news is that both of those factors have had some great changes in recent decades. There has finally been more effort put into trying to learn about the Americas before Columbus (and before the Vikings if you wish) and we finally have more data to work with. 

In “1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus,” Charles C. Mann has given us a much better understanding of our land as it was by bringing together the historical writings that do exist, newer archaeological studies, and a wide variety of scientific fields in this survey that is highly readable for the average person while also intensely fascinating. And recent discoveries have blown away many previous assumptions. 

There is the old assumption that Indians were passive in terms of the environment. They left the land and nature as it is. They enjoyed the abundance but were completely in tune with the environment,  living in a pristine ecological paradise and careful not to despoil it. Mann brings together scholarship from north and south to show that this was not exactly true. They actively shaped their environment with great land projects, large farming projects, forest management including controlled burning and cutting, and even wildlife management. They engaged in the selective breeding of crops. When Europeans arrived in North America, for years it was possible to ride through forests at speed with wagons because of selective thinning and brush control. However, they did so in a different way. And, in some cases, they didn’t manage well, causing disaster. Near modern St. Louis is the archeological site called Cahokia which in 1,100 AD covered over five square miles with at least 15,000 inhabitants and a man-made earthen mound higher than the Great Pyramid of Giza, but it’s thought that it fell because of overuse of the natural resources. 

It was once thought that there were only a few million inhabitants of the Americas before Columbus while more recent estimates range up to 100 million–more than in Europe at that time. If that is true, what happened to them? Mann quotes an early account of a Spanish party exploring the Mississippi River writing about massive settlements with huge fields under cultivation all along the river but when another explored a decade later, they found little sign of any active settlements. Recent studies have suggested that most of the populations were wiped out not be the conquering armies, though that isn’t to say that they didn’t also play a significant part. One of the things the Europeans brought were pigs, which often escaped into the forests. Pigs are good carriers of the diseases that can also aflict humans and the Indians had no immunities to them and no knowlege of how they were transmitted or what they could do about them. 

We all remember reading that Indians came over during the Ice Age when Alaska was connected to Russia along the Bering Land Bridge in 12,000 BC. Indeed, DNA studies have shown some connection to some Siberian tribes, but there are also some that seem to be closer to Europeans or others. And there are now settlements that are known to be older than 12,000 BC including one in Pennsylvania, and others in the southwest and in South America. 

The three great Empires, Aztec, Inca, and Maya have often been considered an enigma, large empires that didn’t seem to be built around trade and were assumed to be large in land area but sparsely populated. But there has not been as much significant archeological work done in the Americas, at least in comparison to Europe and the Mediterranean. Now we are finding that they were highly complex societies and that they may have been the world’s first complex civilization,  even earlier than Mesopotamia. in 1491, the largest city in the world was probably what is now Mexico City. 

A couple of other misconceptions overturned include that there were at least a dozen writing systems by 150 BC and that they did know about the wheel but didn’t make use of it as Europeans did because there were no draft animals large enough to make the wheel useful. But one of their biggest contributions to the world was in the form of crops. They did engage in selective breeding but didn’t depend on just one “perfect” variety of anything (thus avoiding catastrophes like the Irish potato famine). The biggest give to the world was maize or corn and there was a multitude of varieties, but they also developed potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, squashes, and many of the beans eaten around the globe. The staples of many other nations’ cuisines today, foods that they consider to be their own, were developed by Indians, in fact, fully three-fifths of the crops we cultivate today. 

One of Mann’s more questionable assertions, but still with some ring of potential, is that our founding fathers’ idea of representative government came not just from Locke, Greece, and the Roman Senate but from the Iroquois Federation, a representative government that dated back to the 12th century. Maybe that’s a bit too far, but then again, they certainly knew about it, and if they saw it at work and knew that it had been in effect for such a long time, might that at least have been another feather in their cap? It’s not really as hard to believe as it might sound at first. 

I wish I had had this book in high school although a lot of this was not yet know at that time anyway. Still, there was more known than we were taught. I would like this to be required reading today, but I suspect that some might think this is too revisionist or is another attempt to tear down the accomplishments of white people. I am mostly white and though I have around 25% “Indian” heritage, anyone looking at me places me as white. But, if anything, I think this enhances my view of the world and of my heritage. There are no pedestals for any race and it is encouraging to see more evidence that this is true. History that is sanitized is not history and is also useless because there are no lessons to be learned. This book is highly recommended. 

Inexcusable bad narration

I'm used to great readers on Audible. What a disappointment to have a narrator who slurs vowels and reverts to a sing-song cadence. Example: "illustrates" is rendered "ill-strates."

This fine book deserved better.

Awesome book that sheds light into native genius

Awesome read that gives insight into the americas being full of life and culture and civilization before the Europeans arrived. Far from being savages, they had their own organized systems, agriculture methods, terraforming, social welfare systems etc in place. Highly recommend as required reading for all high school, college, and informed citizens.

Eye opening

Basically everything I learned in school has been turned on its head. This book is well worth the read even if you don’t believe everything the author argues.

The 'New' World prior to Columbus

Wonderful book! Providing a new and enlightening perspective on the 'new' world prior to European incursion

Requires full attention but still entertaining

The author Charles C. Mann did what I would consider a good job in attempting to bring together various disparate histories of many distinct cultures from the Americas while dispelling myths or unfounded assumptions about how they lived. Several times I realized I shared a popular view or believed something as fact when it has either been disproven or is unsubstantiated. I also think the included perspectives of people who saw early America was very eye-opening. Of course, this isn’t a light read necessarily. I would recommend taking it seriously devoting as much attention as possible to fully appreciate what he is revealing.

Interesting

This is a very interesting book; I suppose it is accurate, but overall it was good.

Josh Clark was right

Josh Clark from SYSK was right, this book rocks. Josh Clark was right I tell you! There, is that enough words?…

Everything I learned in high school is totally outdated.

While the narrative is all over the place, it is truly interesting and totally kept my attention. I even learned about my 10x great uncle Gaspar de Carvajal who wrote the first account of the Amazon!!