As i have said before, taking AP world has really helped me to better understand what i am reading. This material is very similar to Guns Germs And Steel by Jared Diamond which i read in that class. Both authors write in a very systematic scientifis way.
In guns germs and steel Jared Diamond says that the reason one society is more succesful than another is because of their Relation with Guns (weaponrary) Germs (disease and famine) and steel (advancements and availability of metalurgy). Mann Bassically points out that the Americas are often over looked because people assume that its societies were primitive and had no impact on the world around them. while Native Americans may not have all these advancements they were still a pevelant cultur with huge settlements, politics, small scale military, religion etc... theyre over looked mostly because they didnt keep records.
An interesting fact that I remember is that North America had a larger population than any European country, before 1645. Also tenochtitlan, the aztec capitol had a larger population than any Wuropean city befor 1492. This is actually really strange to me because before i read this book i thought of the Americas before columbus as a vast wilderness sparsley populated by humans.
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