Charles Mann is one of the foremost science journalists working today. His book 1491 recontextualized everything that I thought I knew about the place that I live in. When Europeans arrived in the Americas, after Columbus and so forth, there were very, very few epidemic diseases. And up until the 30s, plagues were killing off Native Americans because they did not have these exposure to the disease for centuries like Europeans and Africans did.
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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