1491: The Truth About the Americas Before Columbus: Quote: "In many high school history classes students are told that before Columbus arrived the Americas were full of untamed wilderness loosely populated with savage Indians. Charles Mann's book, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus proves that the opposite is true. He draws from recent archeological and scientific discoveries to describe booming civilizations which thrived throughout the Americas centuries before the arrival of Europeans. Like Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States this book made me want to call up my old history teachers and tell them they were very wrong. In fact, Mann's self-described thesis is to show that indigenous societies before the arrival of Columbus deserve more than a few misleading pages in a textbook. Mann was able to hold my attention not just with the details of complex indigenous societies, but also with controversies, adventures and divisions among the scientists and archeologists which have contributed to what we know of pre-Columbian history. Not only is he able to make squabbles between European archeologists interesting, but he's able to smoothly describe scientific data and Mayan politics in the same breath." Link
monochrom is an art-technology-philosophy group having its seat in Vienna and Zeta Draconis. monochrom is an unpeculiar mixture of proto-aesthetic fringe work, pop attitude, subcultural science, context hacking and political activism. Our mission is conducted everywhere, but first and foremost in culture-archeological digs into the seats (and pockets) of ideology and entertainment. monochrom has existed in this (and almost every other) form since 1993. [more]
