A review by isvargas
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann

informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

5.0

This book hit so close to home. As someone who grew up in both the US and the Yucatan, its impact is twofold. As a US citizen, I believe this book should be mandatory for high school students. I learned so much from this book, it is a great reminder that even if we think we are knowledgable about our history, we are all complicit in systems of misinformation that attempt to relieve us of guilt from our genocidal past. As someone from Yucatan, I loved hearing about the intersection of history and ecology, and how Indigenous communities once thrived in places that I call home. I never thought I would me reading about mega-niño events and mayan mathematics in the same chapter but here we are! I love it! So many powerful quotes and passages I will definitely reread and revisit for years to come. "Indian societies had built up a remarkable body of knowledge about how to manage and improve their environment....Any group that over-exploited their environment was going to be dead." May we continue to learn effective, impactful conservation, from pre-columbian societies.