Description
America in 1492: The World of the Indian Peoples Before the Arrival of Columbus, originally published in 1992, is reissued and explores the lives and cultures of the people who lived in various regions of the Western hemisphere. This volume examines topics such as Indigenous languages, religion, society, trade, science and technology, and the arts. When Columbus landed in 1492, the New World was far from being a vast expanse of empty wilderness: it was home to some seventy-five million people. They ranged from the Arctic to Tierra del Fuego, spoke as many as two thousand different languages, and lived in groups that varied from small bands of hunter-gatherers to the sophisticated and dazzling empires of the Incas and Aztecs. This brilliantly detailed and documented volume brings together essays by fifteen leading scholars presenting a comprehensive and richly evocative portrait of Native American life on the eve of Columbus's first landfall. Developed at the D'Arcy McNickle Center for the History of the American Indian and edited by award-winning author Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., America in 1492 is an invaluable work that combines the insights of historians, anthropologists, and students of art, religion, and folklore. Its dozens of illustrations, drawn from largely from the rare books and manuscripts housed at the Newberry Library, opens a window on worlds flourished in the Americas five hundred years ago.