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Charles C. Mann, a correspondent for The Atlantic, Science, and Wired, has written for Fortune, The New York Times, Smithsonian, Technology Review, Vanity Fair, and The Washington Post, as well as for the TV network HBO and the series Law & Order. A three-time National Magazine Award finalist, he is the recipient of writing awards from the American Bar Association, the American Institute of Physics, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the Lannan Foundation. His 1491 won the National Academies Communication Award for the best book of the year. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.
A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2011 "Revelatory."
-Lev Grossman, Time Magazine Best Books of 2011 "Compelling and
eye-opening."
- Publishers Weekly Top 100 Books of 2011 "Voltaire would have
loved Charles C. Mann's outstanding new book, 1493. In more than
500 lively pages, it not only explains the chain of events that
produced those candied fruits, nuts and gardens, but also weaves
their stories together into a convincing explanation of why our
world is the way it is . . . Mann has managed the difficult trick
of telling a complicated story in engaging and clear prose while
refusing to reduce its ambiguities to slogans. He is not a
professional historian, but most professionals could learn a lot
from the deft way he does this . . . Most impressive of all, he
manages to turn plants, germs, insects and excrement into the lead
actors in his drama while still parading before us an unforgettable
cast of human characters. He makes even the most
unpromising-sounding subjects fascinating. I, for one, will never
look at a piece of rubber in quite the same way now . . . The
Columbian Exchange has shaped everything about the modern world. It
brought us the plants we tend in our gardens and the pests that eat
them. And as it accelerates in the 21st century, it may take both
away again. If you want to understand why, read 1493."
-Ian Morris, The New York Times Book Review
"Mann's book is jammed with facts and factoids, trivia and moments
of great insight that take on power as they accumulate . . .
Fascinating and complex, exemplary in its union of meaningful fact
with good storytelling, 1493 ranges across continents and centuries
to explain how the world we inhabit came to be."
-Gregory McNamee, The Washington Post "For fans of long-form
nonfiction, 1493 presents multitudinous delights in the form of
absorbing stories and fascinating factoids . . . As a writer, Mann
displays many fine qualities: evenhandedness, a sense of wonder,
the gift of turning a phrase . . . Mann loves the world and adopts
it as his own."
-Jared Farmer, Science "Even the wisest readers will find many
surprises here . . . Like 1491, Mann's sequel will change
worldviews."
-Bruce Watson, San Francisco Chronicle
"Engaging . . . Mann deftly illuminates contradictions on a human
scale: the blind violence and terror at Jamestown, the cruel
exploitation of labor in the silver mines of Bolivia, the awe felt
by Europeans upon first seeing a rubber ball bounce."
-The New Yorker "A muscular, densely documented follow-up [to
Mann's 1491] . . . 1493 moves at a gallop . . . As a historian Mann
should be admired not just for his broad scope and restless
intelligence but for his biological senstivity. At every point of
his tale he keeps foremost in his mind the effect of humans'
activities on the broader environment they inhabit."
-Alfred W. Crosby, The Wall Street Journal
"In the wake of his groundbreaking book 1491 Charles Mann has once
again produced a brilliant and riveting work that will forever
change the way we see the world. Mann shows how the ecological
collision of Europe and the Americas transformed virtually every
aspect of human history. Beautifully written, and packed with
startling research, 1493 is a monumental achievement."
-David Grann, author of The Lost City of Z
"Mann is trying to do much more than punch holes in conventional
wisdom; he's trying to piece together an elaborate, alternative
history that describes profound changes in the world since the
original voyage of Columbus. What's most surprising is that he
manages to do this in such an engaging way. He writes with an
incredibly dry wit."
-Charles Ealy, Austin American-Statesman "The chief strength of
Mann's richly associative books lies in their ability to reveal new
patterns among seemingly disparate pieces of accepted knowledge.
They're stuffed with forehead-slapping 'aha' moments . . . If Mann
were to work his way methodically through the odd-numbered years of
history, he could be expected to publish a book about the global
impact of the Great Recession sometime in the middle of the next
millennium. If it's as good as 1493, it would be worth the
wait."
-Doug Childers, Richmond Times-Dispatch "Almost mind-boggling in
its scope, enthusiasm and erudition . . . Almost every page of 1493
contains some extraordinarily provocative argument or arrestingly
bizarre detail . . . Ranging freely across time and space, Mann's
book is full of compelling stories . . . A tremendously
provocative, learned and surprising read."
-Dominic Sandbrook, The Times of London "A book to celebrate . . .
A bracingly persuasive counternarrative to the prevailing mythology
about the historical significance of the 'discovery' of America . .
. 1493 is rich in detail, analytically expansive and impossible to
summarize . . . [Mann's book] deserves a prominent place among that
very rare class of books that can make a difference in how we see
the world, although it is neither a polemic nor a work of advocacy.
Thoughtful, learned and respectful of its subject matter, 1493 is a
splendid achievement."
-John Strawn, The Oregonian "Despite his scope, Mann remains
grounded in fascinating details: why tobacco exhausted the soil;
how fevers and blights attacked their victims; what made rubber
stretchy; how maize cultivation in the highlands could ruin rice
paddies in the lowlands. Such technical insights enhance a very
human story, told in lively and accessible prose."
-Alex Nalbach, Cleveland Plain-Dealer "Spirited . . . One thing is
indisputable: Mann is definitely global in his outlook and tribal
in his thinking . . . Mann's taxonomy of the ecological, political,
religious, economic, anthropological and mystical melds together in
an intriguing whole cloth."
-Jonathan E. Lazarus, The [Newark] Star-Ledger
"Mann's excitement never flags as he tells his breathtaking story .
. . There is grandeur in this view of the past that looks afresh at
the different parts of the world and the parts each played in
shaping it."
-Marek Kohn, Financial Times "Fascinating . . . Convincing . . . A
spellbinding account of how an unplanned collision of unfamiliar
animals, vegetables, minerals and diseases produced unforeseen
wealth, misery, social upheaval and the modern world."
-Starred review, Kirkus "A landmark book . . . Entrancingly
provocative, 1493 bristles with illuminations, insights and
surprises."
-John McFarland, Shelf Awareness "A fascinating survey . . . A
lucid historical panorama that's studded with entertaining studies
of Chinese pirate fleets, courtly tobacco rituals, and the bloody
feud between Jamestown colonists and the Indians who fed and fought
them, to name a few. Brilliantly assembling colorful details into
big-picture insights, Mann's fresh challenge to Eurocentric
histories puts interdependence at the origin of modernity."
-Starred review, Publishers Weekly "In 1491 Charles Mann
brilliantly described the Americas on the eve of Columbus's voyage.
Now in 1493 he tells how the world was changed forever by the
movement of foods, metals, plants, people and diseases between the
'New World' and both Europe and China. His book is readable and
well-written, based on his usual broad research, travels and
interviews. A fascinating and important topic, admirably told."
-John Hemming, author of Tree of Rivers "Fascinating . . . Engaging
and well-written . . . Information and insight abound on every
page. This dazzling display of erudition, theory and insight will
help readers to view history in a fresh way."
-Roger Bishop, BookPage
"Charles Mann expertly shows how the complex, interconnected
ecological and economic consequences of the European discovery of
the Americas shaped many unexpected aspects of the modern world.
This is an example of the best kind of history book: one that
changes the way you look at the world, even as it informs and
entertains."
-Tom Standage, author of A History of the World in Six Glasses
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