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Title: A ponderous, insightful read
Review: I was facinated by this book early on and couldn't often put it down for three days before I polished of the last appendix. Mann has done an impossible/ yet convincing job of bringing the pre-columbian world alive -showing it through a lens that magnifies and brightens. All sorts of opposing views are treated with respect - letting the reader sort out the wheat and shaff given the evidences presented. I lapped it up!Occassionally the book bogged down into so much detail that it was distracting - I wanted to shout "Get on with it!" I think the points could have been made in half the space. Yet, Mann has walked a delicate balance between a pedestrian world of interested people and the myopic and stuborn world of the university/smithsonian know it alls. Bravo to C. Mann. He's a genius and he's fun to read.
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