“Every society, big or little, misses out on “obvious” technologies. The lacunae have enormous impact on people’s lives—imagine Europe with efficient plows… — Charles C. Mann Copy Share Image
By the 1980s, businesses had realized that environmental issues had a price tag. Increasingly, they balked. Reflexively, the anticorporate Left pivoted; Earth… — Charles C. Mann Business Copy Share Image
“The monks explain that they have been sent by “the one who on the earth is the greater speaker of divine things,”… — Charles C. Mann Nature Copy Share Image
Seoul and Shanghai, Jaipur and Jakarta; shining skyscrapers, pricey hotels, traffic-jammed streets ablaze with neon - all were built atop a foundation… — Charles C. Mann Foundation Copy Share Image
The embrace of a new technology by ordinary people leads inevitably to its embrace by people of malign intent. — Charles C. Mann Embrace Copy Share Image
Rather than forcing local factories to clean up after themselves, Changzhou decided to outsource the job of managing its water supply to… — Charles C. Mann Business Copy Share Image
All parents remember the moment when they first held their children - the tiny crumpled face, an entire new person, emerging from… — Charles C. Mann Children Copy Share Image
Like other parents, I want my children to be comfortable in their adult lives. — Charles C. Mann Children Copy Share Image
“In contemporary hunting and gathering societies, anthropologists have learned, gathering by women usually supplies most of the daily diet. The meat provided… — Charles C. Mann Copy Share Image
Cash-strapped cities in nations from Argentina to Albania have begun to turn over their municipal water systems to Big Water, often under… — Charles C. Mann Argentina Copy Share Image
“Monte Albán is today a decorous sprawl of walls and pyramids enveloped by a lush lawn (this last is an import from… — Charles C. Mann Copy Share Image
“Where does government come from?” Haas asked. “What makes people decide to surrender some of their personal liberty to it? What did… — Charles C. Mann Freedom Copy Share Image
“The viruses that cause smallpox, influenza, hepatitis, measles, encephalitis, and viral pneumonia; the bacteria that cause tuberculosis, diphtheria, cholera, typhus, scarlet fever,… — Charles C. Mann History Copy Share Image
Under the Paris agreement, every one of the 147 signatories issues what is called an 'intended nationally determined contribution' (INDC), which amounts… — Charles C. Mann Contribution Copy Share Image
The Japanese are great at inventing complex systems of rules, and not so great at explaining those rules to foreign visitors. — Charles C. Mann Complex systems Copy Share Image
Indeed, for all Donald Trump's railing about the efforts to curb climate change, nobody in his administration seems to have paid any… — Charles C. Mann About Copy Share Image
“In Mesoamerica, timekeeping provided the stimulus that accounting gave to the Middle East. Like contemporary astrologers, the Olmec, Maya, and Zapotec believed… — Charles C. Mann Daily life Copy Share Image
Artificial lighting, air-conditioning, and automobiles, all powered by fossil fuels, swaddle us in our giddy modernity. In our ergonomic chairs and acoustical-panel… — Charles C. Mann Cozy Copy Share Image
“What happened in 1518 and 1519 is not. In those years, according to Bartolomé de Las Casas, a missionary priest who lived… — Charles C. Mann De Las Casas Copy Share Image
“At the same time, Wari and Tiwanaku kept themselves separate. Although they shared resources, there is little evidence that people from one… — Charles C. Mann Different languages Copy Share Image
“Half of the 102 people on the Mayflower made it through the first winter, which to me seemed amazing. How did they… — Charles C. Mann History Copy Share Image
“Likely the milpa cannot be replicated on an industrial scale. But by studying its essential features, researchers may be able to smooth… — Charles C. Mann Copy Share Image
“The second myth is that in its appetite for death as spectacle the Triple Alliance was fundamentally different from Europe. Criminals beheaded… — Charles C. Mann Death Copy Share Image
“Colón’s signal accomplishment was, in the phrase of historian Alfred W. Crosby, to reknit the seams of Pangaea.” — Charles C. Mann Success Copy Share Image
There are several types of greenhouse gasses, but carbon dioxide is the most important. — Charles C. Mann Carbon Copy Share Image
