The book is broken up into parts, first he starts with some pre-Colombian information and then moves into the first encounters with Europeans. He finishes with the establishment of America and its pre-Empire beginnings. The narrative is engaging and most importantly a lot of great material and well researched. I highly recommend it!

My first unit (U.S. History A) will be on Pre-1492 America and a lot of my material is from Charles C. Mann’s excellent book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (Knopf, 2005).

Too often American Indians are portrayed as unmindful nomads without sophistication, education, art, and culture. Europeans landed, took over, and the rest is as they say history. But what Mann does an excellent job of pointing out, is that the Indians were not helpless and did play a role in history. They made alliances, war, and peace, and the results of which played a role in their demise. They played a role, which is the key, they were not helpless.

But most importantly, we need to teach the incredible achievements of American Indians pre-1492. They were urban dwellers, built huge cities, sophisticated with culture and religion, had a 365 day calendar and had utilized the number Zero. They had empires and built temples, one of which was bigger than some Egyptian pyramids.

The Inca, Mayan, and Aztec empires rival anything the Western world had. They cleared massive forests, build wondrous cities, and altered the earth they occupied as impressively as anyone had.