One of Mann's most controversial points in 1491 revolves around Indian cultivation habits. Instead they cultivated great swaths of land, bio-engineered plants, and kept animal populations under control. Most importantly, Indians did not live the primitive lives of hunter-gatherers in so-called harmony with nature. Some of the cities in Mexico and South America were larger than London or Paris of the same era. Mann asserts that the Indian population of the Americas was far higher than previously believed, and probably equaled that of Europe. Mann's book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus draws on the writings of the first European visitors, as well as abundant evidence from sites in North, Central, and South America, to construct a whole new view of Indians and how they lived. Traveling widely on his own, and interviewing archeologists, anthropologists, and wildlife biologists, Mann discovered surprising facts about Indians-his preferred term for Native Americans-and how they made use of the continents on which they lived. Mann to undertake a study of the latest findings on the nature of civilization in the Americas prior to the arrival of Europeans.
SIDELIGHTS: A trip to Mexico's Yucatan peninsula inspired science writer Charles C. Writer for television show Law and Order and for Home Box Office. Contributor to periodicals, including Atlantic Monthly, Wired, Science, Forbes, Smithsonian, New York Times, and the Washington Post. Text editorial coordinator for photograph collections Material World, 1994, Women in the Material World, 1996, and Hungry Planet, 2005. Writings published in The Best American Science Writing 2003 and The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2003. (With David Freedman) At Large: The Strange Case of the World's Biggest Internet Invasion, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1997.ġ491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus, Alfred A. Plummer) Noah's Choice: The Future of Endangered Species, Alfred A. (With Peter Menzel) Material World: A Global Family Portrait, introduction by Paul Kennedy, Sierra Club Books ( San Francisco, CA), 1994. (With Mark Plummer) The Aspirin Wars: Money, Medicine, and 100 Years of Rampant Competition, Alfred A. Crease) The Second Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics, Macmillan ( New York, NY), 1986, revised edition, Rutgers University Press ( New Brunswick, NJ), 1996. Sloan Foundation, and Margaret Sanger Foundation. Writer of content for CD-ROMs.ĪWARDS, HONORS: Writing prizes from American Bar Association, American Institute of Physics, Alfred P.
Box 222, Amherst, MA 01002.ĬAREER: Science journalist. Agent-Richard Balkin, Balkin Agency, P.O.
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