Book review: 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before
Columbus
by Charles C. Mann
New York: Vintage Books, A Division of Random House, Inc., 2011 (2nd
edition)
553 pages
Everything you never knew about civilized people in the Americas before
the Europeans arrived and killed most of them (OK, many died in battle, but it
was European diseases, mostly). Maybe close to 100 million "native"
people died within 100 years or so of the "discovery" by Columbus…..but
hold on, this book is not a Wounded Knee-type critique, nor is it ex post facto
self-flagellation.
Mann beautifully describes the marvelous sophistication of cultures,
cities, agriculture, arts and science that blossomed in North America, Central
America, and South America thousands of years ago, in many cases predating
achievements and growth and civilization in Europe. Yes, the Incas never used the
wheel except for children's toys. And yes, the Mississippian city of Cahokia
was a bustling port and a trading center with population equal to Paris in
France---and that was 500 years before Columbus sailed. And yes, there
were grand cities in the Americas before there was pyramid-building in Egypt.
And yes, the Olmec culture in what is now Mexico invented the zero whole
centuries before mathematicians in India did the same.
My recollection of learning about the history of the Americas is that
the dates and events were tied to discovery and conquest and colonization by
Europeans. The implication was that, before the white men with guns, germs and
steel arrived, nothing much was going on
in whole continents characterized more by "virgin land" and
"endless wilderness" than by people who had agriculture, city life,
art, trade, commerce, religion, science, kings and philosophers.
For me, the joy of reading this book is learning about the multiplicity
of cultures that flourished in the Americas, and learning how they tamed and
managed and very greenly conserved their environment…and for me, the sad
revelation of this book is understanding that the peoples of the Americas were
human beings whose achievements were noble and notable, and yet, lamentably,
their legacies are largely lost and the losses are barely mourned.
In 1533 Pizarro and his conquistadors at Cuzco precipitated the decline
of the 300-year-old Inca empire in Peru. Fifty years later, the Spanish
colonial administrators in Peru ordered the burning of all the Incan
"khipu" knotted string records because they were "idolatrous
objects." Khipu were the Incas' only form of writing. The smoke from the
burning of the books gets in your eyes, forever and ever.
Charles Mann's website:
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