Pittsburgh/Virtual NonFiction Book Club

### by Charles C. Mann

Before Columbus arrived, the Americas weren't a sparsely populated wilderness—they were home to tens of millions of people who had been reshaping the landscape for thousands of years. Charles Mann's 1491 digs into the latest archaeology, history, and science to paint a much richer picture of pre-Columbian civilizations than most of us grew up with.

A few fascinating highlights: The Aztec capital Tenochtitlan was bigger than Paris or London, with running water and streets cleaner than any European city at the time. Corn didn't exist in nature—Indigenous farmers essentially invented it through centuries of selective breeding. The Amazon rainforest? Partly a human creation.
It's a thought-provoking read that raises great questions for discussion.

The video below is a lecture on the book by the author.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39020.1491
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhncJH4UFQI