1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
A science journalist's synthesis of archaeology, demography, anthropology, and ecology arguing that the pre-Columbian Americas were far more populous, older, and more sophisticated than the "pristine wilderness" story most readers were taught. Page count is for the standard in-print Vintage second-edition paperback (Oct 2006, ISBN 9781400032051, 576 pages per PenguinRandomHouse.com); the 2005 Knopf first edition ran 465 pages.
Try finding the Cahokia material again a week later. Good luck: "the text jumped wildly across continents and thousands of years for no logical reason," one reader complains, and the chapter headings are no map. All that hopping means you never settle anywhere: "This book often reads like an extended Nat Geo article," another writes, hundreds of pages touring the scholarly debates without ever staying with one people long enough to know them. And the debates arrive pre-decided. "I constantly felt cajoled," says a reader who wanted to be convinced instead, while a third adds that "the repeated comparisons between american society and eurasian society are really fraught." A 2005 snapshot, besides, of a field that has not sat still since, dated now even by its admirers' account.
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
