by Charles C. Mann
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.
465 p. ; 25 cm.
This book offers the reader much to think about, and I would highly recommend it to any US History teacher. However, I don't think it is a great read for most teen readers since it spends an inordinate amount of time discussing the scholarly/academic rivalries and infighting over issues regarding when and how the first peoples came to the Americas. That being said, it would be an excellent reference source for any students researching the peoples of the Americas.
The book naturally looks at three regions: North America, Mesoamerica, and South America. Things I found especially fascinating were the discussions of Cahokia (since it is fairly near to Urbana, IL), the amazing civilizations of the Andes, and the ways in which the "pristine" environments of the Americas that Europeans stumbled into (prairie, woodland, Amazon rainforest, etc.) were really not pristine at all, but essentially well managed ecosystems constructed and cultivated by the original inhabitants to benefit them.
1491 also helped me realize that the origins of American Indians is not yet a settled issue, and there may have been several waves of immigration extending farther back than the usually dated 15-20,000 year range.
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