Charles C. Mann Books

In the opening section, I begin where every historical myth takes root — with the earliest European encounters. The explorers and chroniclers who sailed into this world saw what they expected to see: a wild and empty land. They documented what appeared to them as sparse populations and forests stret...

From 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

For centuries, historians repeated a comfortable estimate: before Columbus, only a few million people lived in the Americas. But as I sifted through archaeological findings, burial records, soil analyses, and oral histories, a different picture emerged. The evidence now points to a continent teeming...

From 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

The story begins on the edge of the Atlantic, where Europe, Africa, and the Americas first touched through the voyages launched by Spain and Portugal. I show how Columbus’s landing created the first enduring bridge between Old and New Worlds—not simply for trade but for a new kind of planetary inter...

From 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created

One of the most profound consequences of 1492 was ecological: the mixing of species that had evolved separately for millions of years. I describe how the arrival of European plants and animals transformed the landscapes of the Americas, just as American crops and pests altered Europe, Africa, and As...

From 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created