In this interview author Charles C. Mann discusses some of the “myths” about North American pre-history that he exposes in his recent book, 1491: New Revelations of the Native Americans Before Columbus.

Disclose.tv – 1491: Interview w/ Charles C. Mann Video

Some of the more important assumptions challenged by the “revelations” in the book are that the Americas were thinly populated before European “discovery”, that pre-Columbian native societies were undeveloped and technologically primitive, that natives were primarily hunters and gatherers who had very little impact on their environment.

He also looks at some of the current debate about the “origins” of American native populations – in particular the “Beringian” theories that hold that North American native ancestors came across the land bridge created in the Bering Sea during the last ice age.

To a great degree many of the most recent discoveries about pre-Columbian native life in the Americas are completely missing in North American high school history courses.

For example, many researchers now believe that before Columbus the population of the Americas was at least as high as that of Europe at the time. Estimates are that between 50 and 200 million native Americans were living at that time.

There were also examples of large and complex cities in the Americas. The most obvious example is Tenochtitlan located where Mexico city is now found. Tenochtitlan was the Aztec capital at the time of the Spanish “conquest” by Hernando Cortes. At that time this city had running water, beautiful botanical gardens, and immaculately clean streets. It was larger than any contemporary city in Europe – including Paris and London – with a population estimated at around 250,000.

Mann also discusses at some length the depopulation of native Americans that took place after contact with Europeans. Some estimates are that as many as 90% of native Americans died during a succession of epidemics in the late 1400s, and throughout the 1500s and 1600s.

These massive native deaths completely changed native society, culture and political organization. They sapped the ability of American natives to resist invasion by Europeans, and they made it possible for Euro-immigrants and successive Euro-American leaders to claim that the Americas were vast unspoiled, under-populated expanses of wilderness.

As an example of the political and historical impact of disease on the native populations Mann discusses the fall of the great Aztec and Incan “empires” at some length. The fall of these empires was made possible by diseases that ravaged native populations at precisely the time the Spaniards were invading their homelands.

I was investigating the Kindle the other day. In case you don’t know, the Kindle is a digital tablet designed for reading books in digital form and is sold (exclusively I think) by Amazon.com

This technology has been in development for quite a few years, and the Kindle is already in its 2nd version (Kindle2), so it is approaching maturity, and obviously quite a few people like the idea.

Like many others I enjoy what you might call the “tactile experience” of holding a book, turning pages, etc., but when you stop and think of it the idea of having to print out millions of paper pages just to read stuff we can get on our computer screens, iphones, blackberries and digital book readers doesn’t make a lot of long term sense.

So it’s not the gadget-envy associated with the Kindle that interests me, and it’s definitely not the name. It’s more the idea of being able to download entire books in digital form and read them immediately without having to wait for the physical books to be shipped from somewhere a thousand miles away.

Turns out you can do that now. There is a version of the Kindle software you can run on your PC or Mac. So you can buy the Kindle version of a book – if it is available – and then just read it on your PC. No Kindle required.

Recently I went looking (on Amazon) for a number of books on Native American History. There were quite a few listed, and many were available for between $2 and $6 as used copies from various dealers.

I plodded through the selection process and when I was done the books were about $15 and the shipping about $75. So I looked to see if Kindle versions were available.

Nope. Just a few of the more obscure ones. So I cut my order back to the bare essentials and ordered the old fashioned Amazon way. About a week later I had one of my books. I’m still waiting (about two weeks later) for the others.

Apparently the age of the Kindle has not yet arrived. At least not for the kind of books I am interested in.

In case you haven’t noticed, I like buying (and reading) books. Usually history or “ideas” books like Blink by Malcolm Gladwell or Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt, or 1491 by Charles C. Mann (a really awesome book if you are interested in the history of the Americas).

Often I buy books when I’m travelling somewhere. Some airports have pretty good bookstores. For example a year or so ago I was stuck in Tampa waiting for my golfing buddies who were coming in on another flight. They were delayed about 4 hours because of a thunderstorm, so I had a lot of time to read. That time I found Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday. This was one of the best books I’ve read in years, and really opened my eyes to how much of a rotten bastard Mao was. I’m currently reading it for the 2nd time (yes, all 700+ pages), and it has inspired me to find out more about China.

Last week, for instance, on the bargain table at Chapters I found The Long March: The True History of Communist China’s Founding Myth by Sun Shuyun. The mythic “Long March” is also covered in Mao, but Shuyun’s version is much more sympathetic. Too sympathetic in my view. However I will comment on that at a later date.

Also speaking of China and airports, about three years ago on my way to Prince Edward Island for another golfing trip, at the Toronto airport bookstore I found 1421: The Year China Discovered the World, by Gavin Menzies. This was another absolutely eye-opening book, and I recommend it highly. Menzies’ claim, in a nutshell, is that a massive Chinese expedition took place in 1421 at which time Chinese navigators sailed to virtually every continent (except, apparently, Europe), and mapped every place they visited. Menzies claims that Columbus had copies of these maps, as did Magellan, and virtually all the other Portuguese, Spanish and English explorers.

I don’t want to get off topic here. The topic was “Books from the Bargain Table”. All I really wanted to say was you can find some good books for cheap on the bargain table at one of the bigger book stores. As I’ve mentioned, last week it was The Long March, and this week (yesterday) it was The Greatest Lies in History by Alexander Canduci.

That one wasn’t particularly cheap ($17.99), but I thought it was worth it because it contains some nicely condensed information on some topics I am currently researching: Mao (perhaps history’s greatest bald-faced liar), and the subjugation and forced migration of Indian tribes in the southeastern U.S. during the early 1830s. There’s some other good stuff in there too, but that will also be fodder for more posts in the future.

One of the books I have been reading most recently is called “Traffic” by Tom Vanderbilt. The subtitle is “Why We Drive The Way We Do (and what it says about us)”.

This is not the kind of book you would normally think of as an entertaining read. But like most people who drive a decent amount I have some fairly strong opinions about driving habits, rules and customs. So clearly this is a topic that promises to be of interest to someone like me.

“Traffic” takes a very interesting (and detailed) look at some of these habits, rules and customs, and analyzes some of the (often mistaken) assumptions we make about things like speeding, congestion, lane changing, traffic safety, and so on.

A word of warning: if you are looking for support for a pet theory (such as “large trucks cause lots of accidents” or “slow drivers are more dangerous than fast ones on 4 lane highways”) you probably won’t find it here. Generally speaking this book is an examination of the statistical evidence that supports such theories, and for the most part the simplistic theories that you and I have – especially if you have contrarian views - are not supported by the evidence.

One interesting suggestion the author makes right near the beginning of the book has to do with the practice of “late merging”.  This is what you do when you come to a “merge left” sign (usually because of construction or an accident on the highway). 

 There are three possibilities at such a sign: early merge (get over as quickly as possible), gradual merge (merge gradually, but don’t wait until the end of the lane), and late merge (go right up to the end of the disappearing lane and merge at the last minute). 

The most socially acceptable method of merging in such a situation is the early merge. We Canadians, being the polite people we are, seem to consider it almost our duty to get over as soon as possible – what you might call “extreme early merging”.

This is not so much a matter of traffic efficiency or even driving etiquette as it is a reflection of our character. You know - that guy who busts past you in the right lane and expects other people to let him in ahead of the rest of us obedient drivers. Isn’t that queue jumping?

Well, it turns out that according to Vanderbilt, studies have been done (of course they have!) that show it is more efficient to late merge. If you go right up to the end of the lane and then merge into the adjacent lane you win on two counts. First, you maximize the available space by keeping the disappearing lane full. And second, there is much less jockeying and anticipating as you look for someone to let you in.

In other words, late merging is more efficient. And it would be even more efficient (and safer) if drivers just accepted the same kind of rule they accept at a four-way stop. Stop, let somebody from the other lane go, then go.

That’s pretty simple, but it’s not the rule we use because, as Vanderbilt says, “there seems to be a whole worldview contained in each of the merge strategies that have been tried.” And many people simply cannot get over the attitude that “I’m acting like a selfish SOB if I push right up to the end of the line.”

I found this especially interesting because of another contrarian merge strategy I use every time I merge onto the highway just outside of our town – often several times a week. It’s what I call the “inside move”, or in this context might be called a “delayed merge”.

The scenario is this: a long two-lane on-ramp merges from the right with the regular three lanes of the highway. Well back on the ramp people are told a merge is coming and they obediently line up in the left lane. Not only does this slow the entire left ramp lane down, but it leaves the right lane virtually empty.

So with the “delayed merge” instead of slowing down and moving left I just stay in the right lane and cruise by everyone in the left lane. By the time I reach the actual merge point (extended over about half a mile), everybody has started to move left anyway and I can just move over with them.

Whenever I do this with a passenger in the car I notice they tend to get a bit uneasy. “What’s going to happen when we have to move over? Aren’t we going to get squeezed into the right-hand guard rail?” Happily after doing the delayed merge hundreds of times I have yet to take out my first guard rail.

I suppose if too many drivers were to use the delayed merge it might be a bit chaotic at the merge point, and it might be more dangerous too, since by this time cars are moving more quickly.

But as Vanderbilt demonstrates over and over in his book, you can’t take an assumption like that to the bank. You simply cannot say with any certainty how drivers will behave in an unfamiliar situation. There are lots of things the traffic engineers can predict about driver behavior. And lots of things they can’t predict.