Get our Best Book Club Books of 2025 eBook!

What readers think of 1491, plus links to write your own review.

Summary |  Excerpt |  Reading Guide |  Reviews |  Beyond the book |  Read-Alikes |  Genres & Themes |  Author Bio

1491 by Charles C. Mann

1491

New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

by Charles C. Mann
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (7):
  • Readers' Rating (8):
  • First Published:
  • Aug 1, 2005, 480 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Oct 2006, 528 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Reviews

Page 1 of 1
There are currently 8 reader reviews for 1491
Order Reviews by:

Write your own review!

Sharon Damiata

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
Fantastic book! For anyone with any curiosity about Native Americans and their ways of life in the Western Hemisphere! Educational and a joy to read!
Jacob Litoff

Excellent Book
I greatly enjoyed reading this book and discovering the history of the Native American Indians.
Peter Boyle

What Archaeology Tells Us
As a retired Archaeologist I found 1491 to be a readable synthesis of what Archaeologists and Geographers have talked about for a long time. Humans have been in the Americas for over 20,000 years (as recent, long suppressed, publications by Tom Dillehay and Mike Adovoso have proven). We knew much of this 20 or more years ago, and I am glad that someone finally wrote a readable book about it.
Mary Lee Parrington

A Fresh Look at the
It turns out "The New World" wasn't so new after all. The idea that North and South America, before Columbus, was home to more inhabitants than Europe at that time is completely at odds with what we learned in school. But in a work that synthesizes recent scholarship, Mann makes a very good case for the concept that ancient civilizations had inhabited the Western Hemisphere for millenia. It explains the existence of ruined cities throughout south and central America. and the huge contributions to agriculture; maize, tomatoes, and potatoes which became staples around the world. DNA analysis explains just how devastating European diseases were to Native Americans from the first moments of contact, even before European settlement. It is a fascinating look at an accidental disaster that did indeed create a "New World."
vince storti

what was missed
I liked the beginning; what came after was a hodgepodge running in circles from Eastern seaboard to Brazil to Peru and back again, all the while neglecting areas northwest and Southwest of Central Mexico and South of Mexico in North America and neglecting Northern parts of South America. The books seemed to be hit and miss, with no indication of the intellectual background of the journalist; some ethnology, some archeology, some prehistory, some travelogue, some guessimations of psychology. If he had a good editor, he'd have been able to get twice the information in on half the pages. Footnotes were assigned page numbers (no note numbers); what academia teaches these days I know not.
Marty Chenault

1491
What were the effects of the Black Death on Europe during this period? I believe it wiped out about 2/3 of the population of that part of the world, so is this PC revisionist history at work?
Ilsa

1491 Revisionism
While the research is surprising regarding pre-European Indian demographics and culture (though not well-cited, so not really credible), the data and interpretations of European ethnocentricity is not.

However, the self-conscious, pervasive tone of condescension toward "revisionist" history (near anything pre this author), affected sniffy tone and at times nearly fantastic yet dogged interpretations about Indian motives, including, for instance, those as being undilutedly anti-European, dissembling and conniving from Tisquntum, make this potentially educational book a tiresome, black-and-white read.

1491 would be so much more enjoyable with a less self-placing author; less didactic, authoritarian tone; and the addition of verified facts and a more tentative tone and interpretations. It is perhaps more tyranical toward the reader than its Anglophile predecessors.
David Libenson

Disorganized opinions
I agree with the Washington Post review. This book is very disorganized. It is filled with personal opinions that are not properly cited. The reference notes are not in the text and it is very difficult to determine the author's sources. He jumps around fro era to era and geographic location to location. I learned more about the pre-Columbian Americas in the museums in Mexico City and Lima than from this book. Furthermore a high percentage of the material is post 1492.

I am very surpised at the high praise given this book and have to believe most reviewers did not read it; rather took their reviews from publicity releases.
  • Page
  • 1

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    Lies and Weddings
    by Kevin Kwan
    A forbidden affair erupts at a lavish Hawaiian wedding in this wild comedy from the author of Crazy Rich Asians.
  • Book Jacket
    The Lilac People
    by Milo Todd
    For fans of All the Light We Cannot See, a poignant tale of a trans man’s survival in Nazi Germany and postwar Berlin.
  • Book Jacket
    The Girls of Good Fortune
    by Kristina McMorris
    Brave the Shanghai tunnels in this tale of love, identity, and resilience passed through generations.
  • Book Jacket
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Based on the author’s family story, comes an extraordinary novel about a mother and her daughters’ escape from Taiwan.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Erased
    by Anna Malaika Tubbs

    In Erased, Anna Malaika Tubbs recovers all that American patriarchy has tried to destroy.

  • Book Jacket

    Awake in the Floating City
    by Susanna Kwan

    A debut novel about an artist and a 130-year-old woman bound by love and memory in a future, flooded San Francisco.

  • Book Jacket

    Songs of Summer
    by Jane L. Rosen

    A young woman crashes a Fire Island wedding to find her birth mother—and gets more than she bargained for.

  • Book Jacket

    The Original Daughter
    by Jemimah Wei

    A dazzling debut by Jemimah Wei about ambition, sisterhood, and family bonds in turn-of-the-millennium Singapore.

Who Said...

The moment we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold into a library, we've changed their lives ...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

T the V B the S

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.