How did scholars of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries differ on their ideas of American Indian development?

In an essay of at least 5 pages, please consider one of the following prompts:

• Charles Mann has a particular vision for how and why Indians in the Americas failed to

advance in ways that Africans, Asians, and Europeans did. What are his notions on why

American agricultural, architectural, and environmental advances, many of which

predated or outpaced Old World concepts at the time, were unable to expand to all the

regions of the Americas? How did the Old World evolve into a network of technological

innovation and advancement that surpassed the Americas? How did ideas on American Indian development change over time, globally?

• Charles Mann is not only interested in how American societies arrived, developed, and

evolved, but also how they adapted to the multiple environments of the Americas. How

did indigenous Americans find ways to overcome environmental obstacles? What

techniques, attitudes, or actions did indigenous Americans share? What techniques were

unique to certain areas? Why did some communities and societies thrive in the years

before 1492 while others fell apart and disbanded into new groups or the landscape? How did scholars of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries differ on their ideas of American Indian development?

* A note on citation. After every paragraph you write, please ask yourself the following

question:

Did I write anything here that is paraphrased or taken directly from the text of

1491? If that answer is “Yes” and it really should be for 95% of your essay, please do one

of the following things:

1) Put a footnote at the end of every paragraph that has paraphrased material and

tell me the page number.1

2) Put a page number in parenthesis after every sentence or paragraph with

paraphrased material. (#, #-#)

3) Put direct quotes around things that are “taken directly from the text” and cite

where you got that quote, either in a footnote or in a parenthesis, at the end of the

sentence in which it is being used. (Like this