Review: 1491 - New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann

This is a non-fiction book about the Americas before Columbus came along. There are a number of new insights in this book, at least new to me, and I found it all very fascinating. A few of the things I had heard about before, like the fact that even before the first European settlers arrived in North America disease had swept the continent and fundamentally changed Indian society. So the “original” way of life in North America that the settlers experienced was actually an adaptation to new circumstances. 

Aside from this, the book covers a number of topics more or less thoroughly, including maize, disease, the Mayan calendar and the Five Nations. There are accounts of both North, South and Mesoamerica before and after contact with Europeans in here and that was my only complaint, and a minor one at that. The book did jump around a little in time and place and that made it feel a little disjointed. But with such a massive scope it is hardly possible to do otherwise. 

Every subject that Mann approached was interesting and enlightening and I found this book entertaining and educating, and I really think a lot of people would benefit from reading this. It gives a very different insight into the Americas before Europeans, than what is generally known among the public. He says himself that some of these “new” revelations are actually quite old, but for some reason they haven’t made it into the mainstream history of the Americas. I think this book is just the thing to make that transition happen. It is well written and engaging, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

I gave this book 5 stars out of 5.