1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
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1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (ISBN 140004006X) is a book written by Charles C. Mann and published by Knopf on August 9, 2005.
The book marshals evidence accumulated over the last several decades about pre-columbian human population and natural environments in the New World and concludes that human populations were much higher, more sophisticated, and more in control of the land than is commonly thought, in line with the earliest reports of Europeans such as Gaspar de Carvajal and Hernando de Soto.
Old World diseases spread through the Americas in great pandemics the century following 1492. Without these diseases, the conquest of the Aztec and Inca empires, as well as subsequent conquests, would have been impossible. Perhaps the most audacious observation in the book is that the Amazon rain forest has been largely shaped by forgotten agricultural methods, including the creation of terra preta.
External links
- [1491] - A short form of the book appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, March 2002
- [Part 1] and [Part 2] — A two-part interview with the author by Indian Country Today
- [An interview] with Mann about this book conducted by [Bookbrowse.com]
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