Charles Mann looks at the history of the Americas quite differently from the version you probably learned in school.
In his controversial book “1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus,” Mann has compiled works of numerous scholars to argue that before Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492, the Western Hemisphere contained more than 100 million people.
…Mann – a correspondent for Science and the Atlantic Monthly – quotes two University of Wisconsin-Madison experts, among many others, in support of and opposition to his theories. For instance, he quotes UW-Madison history and geography Professor William Cronon on the way Indians managed their environment by using fire.
UW-Madison African studies bibliographer and historian David Henige is also among those quoted.