I would read 1491 before 1493, but you could certainly read wizard and prophet on either side of that. I don't think he has a solution to reconcile the wizards

I would read 1491 before 1493, but you could certainly read wizard and prophet on either side of that. I don't think he has a solution to reconcile the wizards and the prophets. The two approaches are not at all mutually exclusive, but wizards try to find solutions for a larger population, while prophets seek to constrain the population. One point that he makes in 1491/1493 is that native civilizations manipulated the environment much more than previously thought. The Americas were very much a worked landscape before the Europeans landed. They were just worked by deliberate fire, rather than the plough. He says that there is evidence that 1/8th of California was burned every year, which puts our recent fires to shame. The balance of that landscape and its species was destroyed when the Indians were wiped out.