"1491" Author Charles Mann to Speak at Carroll March 23

February 16, 2009


On Monday, March 23, author Charles C. Mann will be at Carroll College (Helena, Mont.) to deliver a lecture, "A history of the Americas before Columbus," at Carroll College's Campus Center in the lower level starting at 7:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. A book signing will follow the lecture. Mann's visit to the capital city is sponsored by The Carroll College Latin American Studies Program with a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, the Associated Students of Carroll College, the Indian Education Division of the Montana Office of Public Instruction, and the Helena Indian Alliance.


In his acclaimed book "1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus," Charles C. Mann challenges the conventional wisdom that the Americas were sparsely populated continents teeming with wildlife before the Europeans arrived on its shores. Using recent archaeological and anthropological research, he shows how the western hemisphere probably held more people than Europe with Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, having more people than any European city in 1491. He lists the mathematical and scientific accomplishments of the Mayans, Incas, and Aztecs, and shows how the Indian tribes of North America were populous and had already removed much of the wilderness to suit their own needs. What the Europeans brought were diseases such as small pox and hepatitis that decimated up to 90% of some native populations. By the time explorers reached central North America, the forests had regrown and the populations of animals such as the buffalo exploded in the absence of the native tribes. "1491" urges a rethinking of pre-European history in the Americas and a re-examination of how we live with the environmental consequences of colonization.