From the Bookshelf of Science and Inquiry…

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

Charles C. Mann

Start date: August 9, 2005

Finish date: September 9, 2011

Discussion: Book Club 2011

Discussion leader: Betsy

Why we're reading this: because this book is all about our country and history repeats itself so i want to nominate this book.
[close] because this book is all about our country and history repeats itself so i want to nominate this book.

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Book Club 2011

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What Members Thought

Dec 22, 2010 David Rubenstein rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history

This is an excellent book that describes the civilizations in North, Central, and South America before (and shortly after) the arrival of Columbus. Many facets of these civilizations are quite impressive. For example, the agricultural method of inter-planting different species of crops in a plot of land was a wonderful approach for keeping farms fertile over long periods of time, even millennia. This farming method was much better--and more efficient--than the European method of rotating crops. ...more

16 likes · Like · see review

Jul 08, 2010 Kathleen (itpdx) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: lwv-book-group, non-fiction

This is one of those books that changes your view of the world. It is a well written account of what we have recently found out about the peoples that lived in the New World at the time of Columbus's first voyage. Mann discusses findings and research on how long people have been present in the Americas, how many were present when Columbus arrived, the cultures and governments of the various civilizations that rose and declined, and the way that the Indians managed their environments.

Mann, a jou ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Aug 13, 2007 Tanner rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Too many revelations to count. It's amazing that our conception of pre-Columbian America is so outdated. As with some other books I have given 5 stars, the prose is nothing spectacular, but the content is well researched and tied together very nicely. ...more

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Jan 30, 2011 Patricrk patrick rated it liked it

Shelves: history, science

What would the world look like if 95% of the people died over a one year period say 30 years ago. That is the world that the settlers of New England found. A landscape where the people who had lived there for a thousand years and had shaped the land to their needs and desires had lost so much population that they could no longer maintain the land. The same is true of the Amazon river basin and the highlands of Peru. Charles Mann tries to recreate the Americas before disease had drastically reduc ...more

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