The pristine myth is the founding myth of unfortunately the environmental movement. It means that we've comprehensively mismanaged so much of the land as a result of this myth, he says. The last indigenous people were kicked out of Yosemite until the middle of the 20th century and it really gives you a bad taste of those who had been living there for centuries.
This week Adam welcomes an author whose book blew his mind more than perhaps any other. Americans are typically taught that prior to the arrival of European settlers, indigenous communities were sparsely populated, lacked technology, and did little to shape the natural landscape. But as this week’s guest Charles C. Mann’s 1491 tells Adam, the most recent research reveals that the American indigenous civilizations were sophisticated, dynamic, and massively populated. Purchase his books 1491 and 1493 at http://factuallypod.com/books.
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