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Title: Fresh air in a stale closet
Review: Charles Mann's history is unquestionably one-sided, but it provides a necessary antidote to history-as-usual. Popular knowledge about pre-Columbian America is often little more than a cartoon image of teepees and rusticity. The scale of civilization on these continent, the enormous number of denizens, the holocaust visited on the people by contact with European greed and disease, are only vaguely considered, if at all. If Mann has tilted too far toward the challengers of old histories, he has yet done a service in prying open the minds of readers. In conjunction with other recent books, including Jared Diamond's GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL (W.W. Norton, 1995) and COLLAPSE (W.W. NORTON, 1999), we are being given the tools to better understand an important and under-reported piece of cultural and ethical history.
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