Why did I love this book?
This book opened a whole new world for me with its painstaking and voluminous depiction of life in the Western Hemisphere before European colonization.
Drawing on many archaeological sources and combining them with rich description from personal visits, the book created a vivid picture of how varied and complex the social life and culture was in North and South America, and how much (surprisingly) scientists know about the civilizations that came before us.
I couldn’t help imagining what the world would have been like if the Europeans had approached the New World as one society greeting another, rather than as conquerors.
9 authors picked 1491 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A groundbreaking work of science, history, and archaeology that radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus in 1492—from “a remarkably engaging writer” (The New York Times Book Review).
Contrary to what so many Americans learn in school, the pre-Columbian Indians were not sparsely settled in a pristine wilderness; rather, there were huge numbers of Indians who actively molded and influenced the land around them. The astonishing Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan had running water and immaculately clean streets, and was larger than any contemporary European city. Mexican cultures created corn in a specialized…