It was developed in southern Mexico but by the time of Columbus’ arrival it had spread north to New England and south to Peru. Once maize was developed, another impressive feat was its spread throughout the Americas. The closest wild relative is so far removed from what we know as maize that modern plant scientists are still amazed by its transformation. While the development of wheat in Europe was a relatively simple adaption of wild wheat to make it more productive, maize has no wild equivalent. One of the most impressive and long-lasting Indian advancements according to Mann is the development of maize, or corn. Basically, these new findings are that Indian people (the term used by Mann) were far more numerous than was originally thought, lived in complex and advanced societies and cultures, shaped their environment more than is traditionally thought and finally, that the scale of widespread death after the arrival of the Europeans is even more shocking than we have learned. The main thesis of this book is that what is taught in schools and generally believed to be true about American cultures before Columbus is being sharply questioned and proven false by new findings by anthropologists, archeologists and historians through new discoveries and the ability of new technologies like DNA analysis to give us hard data.

Plus, the subject is really interesting and even though you may think you learned all about this in school, there are lots of new revelations, as the title promises, about many of the cultures and people living in the Americas before its “discovery.” I finally got around to reading 1491 and I really enjoyed it! As a fiction lover I am sometimes skeptical of historical narratives but Mann has a narrative style that makes the pages fly by. Mann, documenting the state of the Americas before and after Columbus.

So he ended up getting me two books that weren’t actually on the list but related to the theme: 14 by Charles C. So last Christmas I sent him my Pinterest board of books I wanted which mostly had to do with Mexican/Latin American history (I’ve realized that despite majoring in Spanish I am really lacking in historical knowledge of Latin America).

My brother is a very practical person so for the past few years we have mostly stopped guessing what we want for Christmas, we go ahead and tell each other what we’re interested in.

1491 and 1493 by charles c mann