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Have there been any recent books that try to reconstruct what pre-Columbian South America was like? I know that 1491 was a pretty good book about this. But it
by timmg 2y ago
Have there been any recent books that try to reconstruct what pre-Columbian South America was like?
I know that 1491 was a pretty good book about this. But it's like 20 years old now. And Lidar seems to have really opened up new insights in the past decade or so.
- bboygravity 2y agoIf you mean visually, there's this: https://tenochtitlan.thomaskole.nl/ https://tenochtitlan.thomaskole.nl/
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- thrownblown 2y agoNot South America, but the story of Moncacht-Apé (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moncacht-Ap%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moncacht-Ap%C3%A9) is a fascinating—if slightly dubious—primary source describing his journey across North America immediately prior to European contact. I found a copy of his account as told to a French colonial officer on Amazon, and it looked like it was printed on a laser printer. Cabeza de Vaca spent 1528–1536 wandering through the Southwest, living with multiple indigenous tribes. His experiences ranged from enslavement to becoming a medicine man. His firsthand account, Naufragios, is available, but I highly recommend A Land So Strange by Andrés Reséndez for a more accessible read. De Vaca also had a second adventure in South America, but it’s not as well-documented. Another great read is River of Darkness by Buddy Levy, which covers Francisco Orellana’s journey down the Amazon. His expedition was roughly contemporary to Cabeza de Vaca’s own jungle survival story—though Orellana was a bit more conquistadorial than De Vaca. I’d also love to see a proper follow-up to 1491 (1493 doesn’t count!). The closest thing we have might be America Before by Graham Hancock, which incorporates recent LiDAR discoveries—but it leans more into speculation than hard archaeology.
- sampo 2y agoThere is "America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization", from 2019 by Graham Hancock. But while Graham Hancock refers to lots of real research, he also mixes in his own unverified ideas and theories. In that sense, Charles C. Mann is a more serious reporter than Hancock.
- timmg 2y agoReading the description of that book on Amazon — and skimming some reviews— makes it sound pseudo-science-y.
- dendrite9 2y agoI'd be curious about South America as well as North America. I found Pekka Hämäläinen's Indigenous Continent to be a worthwhile history of North America, although mostly it was focused on events during European exploration of North America with a relatively short initial section about the state of civilization prior to the Spanish arrival.