“Carrying their flints and torches, Native Americans were living in balance with Nature—but they had their thumbs on the scale. Shaped for their comfort and convenience, the American landscape had come to fit their lives like comfortable clothing. It was… — Charles C. Mann Copy Share Image
“Until Columbus, Indians were a keystone species in most of the hemisphere. Annually burning undergrowth, clearing and replanting forests, building canals and raising fields, hunting bison and netting salmon, growing maize, manioc, and the Eastern Agricultural Complex, Native Americans had… — Charles C. Mann Copy Share Image
“A milpa is a field, usually but not always recently cleared, in which farmers plant a dozen crops at once, including maize, avocados, multiple… — Charles C. Mann Copy Share Image
“In the classic successional course, each suite of plants replaces its predecessor, until the arrival of the final, “climax” ecosystem, usually tall forest.” — Charles C. Mann Copy Share Image
In 1491 the Inka ruled the greatest empire on earth. Bigger than Ming Dynasty China, bigger than Ivan the Great’s expanding Russia, bigger than… — Charles C. Mann Copy Share Image
The Paris pact was correctly described by its opponents - greens and anti-greens alike - as toothless. But it was also the first time… — Charles C. Mann Copy Share Image
“Drought indeed stressed the system, but the societal disintegration in the south was due not to surpassing inherent ecological limits but the political failure… — Charles C. Mann Copy Share Image
“The Maya collapsed because they overshot the carrying capacity of their environment. They exhausted their resource base, began to die of starvation and thirst,… — Charles C. Mann Copy Share Image
Prediction is a mug's game, but taking the side of water polluters has not been a winning political strategy for 50 years. Presidents Reagan,… — Charles C. Mann Copy Share Image
The queue of activists, interest groups, and ordinary people wringing their hands over what a President Donald Trump might do in office is long,… — Charles C. Mann Copy Share Image
“The varieties are not like islands, carefully apart,” Perales explained. “They are more like gentle hills in a landscape—you see them, they are clearly… — Charles C. Mann Copy Share Image
“export of food from Ireland during the famine: 430,000 tons of grain in 1846 and 1847, the two worst years. “The Almighty indeed sent… — Charles C. Mann Copy Share Image
“all states can be parceled into four types: pluralist, in which the state is seen by its people as having moral legitimacy; populist, in… — Charles C. Mann Copy Share Image
The way I think of it, economics and ecology occupy two intellectual silos, isolated from each other. Even when they do take each other… — Charles C. Mann Copy Share Image
