★★★★★ 4
If you liked 1491, you'll like 1493
Format: Hardcover
I originally read the first edition of 1491, which I loved. So that's why I ordered 1493. At about the same time 1493 arrived, I found out there was a new, revised version of 1491, which my husband bought from another source. So I re-read it at the same time I read 1493 for the first time. The reason I mention this is that there are some similarities between the revised version of 1491 and the newer book, 1493 - actually some repeated material. That's ok, as the author is taking the premise of 1491 another step further. Essentially, 1491 focuses on what new studies show was really going on in the Western Hemisphere before Columbus' arrival, where native peoples were far more numerous and had more advanced cultures than Europeans previously thought possible. In 1493, Charles Mann shows not only how Columbus and Europeans changed the New World, but how the "Columbian exchange" wrought great changes in the other direction as well. And he pulls in the further exchanges with Asia, to show the trans-global linkages of the phenomenon. So, some of his exposition gets a little repetitious, but overall he's an engaging writer, and for those of us who love the history of cultural exchanges and first contact, these books are mandatory reading!
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Reviewed in the United States on October 5, 2011
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