Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I wanted to like this book and believe in the arguments that the author was making, but in the end I simply could not do it. There was too much anecdote and speculation used to support the author's ideas about the size and sophistication of pre-Columbus populations in the Americas. A bounty of documented evidence and facts are critical when attempting to revise such a major part of the historical record. I found too many instances where the author was glib presenting an analogy or drawing a conclusion. I repeatedly found myself thinking, "No, Y does not follow from X in this case!" Like other readers, I also found this book extremely disorganized in its presentation. One chapter we're following the Inca Empire in Peru, the next it's off to Plymouth, Massachussetts, then a quick stop at Clovis, and then we doddle off to the Yucatan to hang out with the Maya. There also seems to be a larger agenda behind Mann's arguments in this book. This is especially apparent when he is discussing the potential pre-1492 human impact on the Amazon basin. He consistently pursues a line of argument best paraphrased as, "Hey, the Indians were constantly slashing and burning parts of the forest to create arable land, so what's the big deal if we do it nowadays?" Great, except that the ability of small tribes with stone axes to clear rainforest isn't within ten orders of magnitude of what modern man and a few diesel bulldozers can achieve. Fascinating speculation, recommended only if you have a lot of spare time to go on a summer flight of fancy.