1491 Mann Summary

. In 1491 Mann seeks to shine light on the American populations that have often been underrepresented in traditional history texts. He first begins by laying out the foundations for the many empires and civilizations that he means to explore. He argues that throughout History, such examples as Holmberg’s mistake has been carried on and recreated all around the Americans by both contemporary explorers and later anthropologists. The underrepresentation is not primarily one of racism but as Mann has suggested that by the time explorers, conquerors and anthropologist had begun to interact with the native populations they had already been severely diminished by disease and civil war most often initiated by European presence. He stresses that the …show more content…
My view of the contact period is significantly different than what it used to be. Even as a history major, there is a lack of education surrounding the Americans and much of what I had learned about it was later 18th or 19th century unites states history. Anything that I had learned about the last 2000 years or so had happened in a high school classroom that glosses over most of the content. I had learned that many European explorers had brought over disease to the native populations and was one of the main reasons why they had conquered them but it was not until Mann’s book that I had realized that these civilizations rivaled those on the European continent and would have most likely never been conquered if they populations had not been so diminished. The most surprising fact was the amount of impact that they had on the landscape. I had always known that the Inka, Aztec and Maya were moderately large but not to the scale at which they are currently being discusses. I knew of the Inka, but not of the vast networks of roads they had created that would rival ones of the Roman Empire and still exist today (97). Nor that they had complicated social organization and a system of conquering knowing of hegemony that would allow them to grown to the size that would rival the greatest of European empires(81). That surprise doubles when it comes to North American Cultures who had robust and long reaching trade networks while significantly altering the land to better suit their …show more content…
The primary evidence for the high counter argument is that when contemporary sources of populations had already been recorded the population of the variety of culture had already been destroyed by disease before many Europeans had arrives. Thus any population’s estimates would be undervalued. Dobyns suggested that any estimates would have been multiplied by a factor of 20 or more to compensate for the few swaths of people left (106). Dobyns estimates are on the extreme side, but many researchers fundamentally disagree with him due to impact that it has on the world. If it true that Americans had lost 95 percent of in populations, think of the knowledge, culture and technology that has not been lost to us, almost true great of a tragedy to believe. Then, when it comes down to who was the cause of these genocides the game becomes more complicated. Nobody wants to be known as the colonizing or conquers who has wiped some of the greatest civilizations of the earth. I think the most compelling arguments are ones that deal with high populations estimates because as we continuously find more archaeological sites that spread to all reaches of the American and we are thoroughly surprised numerous times over at each discovery. I think it is time that we stop underestimated American civilizations because of the misrepresentation that had exists because of European colonialism backed up by contemporary accounts that want to marginalize their impact on the