America in 1492: The World of the Indian Peoples Before the Arrival of Columbus

To know who we are, we must know where we came from, why we do what we do.

"America in 1492" is a collection of 14 essays, mostly by anthropologists, about the Indians of the Americas just before the voyages of Christopher Columbus. The editor contributes an introduction and the well-known Indian scholar Vine Deloria, Jr. adds an afterword. The book is attractive and its premise is superb: to describe the American Indians before their traditional life and culture were destroyed by the Europeans. But the book is not quite as good as it should be. The subject, ranging over two continents, is too broad to be covered adequately in one volume. The contributors are mostly anthropologists and the breadth of their vision is often restricted. Political correctness creeps into some essays. A description of the Aztecs trips quickly over the gory subject of human sacrifice -- widely practiced by the Aztecs and a central theme of their religion. Moreover, the approach of most writers is anthropological and historical information is mostly ignored. Within 50 years of 1492, the Spanish and other explorers encountered Indians from Newfoundland to Tierra del Fuego and their eye-witness accounts, however brief and biased, are invaluable. The integration of these early historic accounts with anthropological information would result in much more vivid and realistic descriptions of the Indians in 1492. Alas, many of the authors rely on their own anthropologicial speciality, ignoring the eye-witness accounts of Cabeza de Vaca and the expeditions of De Soto and Coronado, among others, which could add materially to the validity of their accounts. Finally, there is the afterword by DeLoria, the author of the best-selling, "Custer Died For Your Sins." In a thoughtful, interesting, but rambling essay, DeLoria introduces some fantastic notions. An inscription in Tennessee, he says, is written in ancient Hebrew -- thereby reviving the old (and ridiculous) theory that the Indians are descendants of the ten lost tribes of Israel. And, he proceeds onward to describe an Indian pictograph of a dinosaur, suggesting apparently that dinosaurs and American Indians co-existed! Without further explanation, such startling assertions do not belong in a book purporting to be factual. I don't want to leave the impression that this is a bad book. It's not -- many of the essays are interesting and worth reading -- but a better book could be written or compiled on such a fascinating subject. Smallchief

I am a professional computer scientist and an amature historian. This superb book makes the truth of what really happened so self evident that anyone who is really interested in truth must read it. It is expertly edited and written. A pleasure and a heart rendering story, at the same time.