ICT: First, let us thank you for the enormously important work you have done in writing this book.

He graciously accepted an invitation to participate in an interview for the newspaper, through an email exchange. Indian Country Today met Charles Mann at one of the numerous public lectures he has been presenting in the wake of his book's publication. No longer do we have to base our critique of the Bering Strait theory (or, as the late Vine Deloria, Jr., called it, the BS theory) and all its attendant nonsense about a 'vacant land' only on our gut instincts and traditional stories now we can locate in one book the results of advanced Western science that support our understandings. This book provides the foundation for a scientific history of the Americas.

The publication of Mann's book shifts the entire paradigm of 'discovery,' colonization, and the history of Indigenous Peoples in the Americas. Epidemics reduced whole Peoples to remnants unable to defend themselves and their lands. Instead of a few wandering groups scattered over the land, Mann shows that the latest research documents the existence of millions of people in widespread and intricate civilizations throughout the hemisphere, who succumbed not because they were 'inferior' to the colonizing invaders, but because they had no immunity to the imported diseases. Mann presents this research in an easy, personable style that allows readers to understand issues and concepts in complex fields like linguistics, genetics, carbon dating, soil geography, and epidemiology.Ĭombining these fields with recent findings from anthropology and archaeology, Mann builds an overwhelming critique of conventional stereotypes of the 'new world': he shows that the indigenous population was significantly greater and Indigenous Societies significantly more complex than the stereotypical views present. It brings together results of the latest scientific research that has been focused on learning about the American hemisphere before the so-called 'discovery' by Columbus.

As the Times put it, 'This sweeping portrait of pre-Columbian civilization argues that it was far more populous and sophisticated than previously thought.' Mann's new book, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, published in August by Knopf, is already a best-seller and has made the New York Times list of the 100 Notable Books of the Year. MannĪbout his new book: 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus By Peter d'Errico Published in two parts in Indian Country TodayĬharles C. Charles Mann Interview Indian Country Today interview with Charles C.

Charles mann's 1491