via Native Intelligence.
This 2005 piece in The Smithsonian by Charles C. Mann offers a fascinating look at the Native American and European relationship at the time of the Pilgrims’ arrival. (H/T to the Fabius Maximus blog, where I came across this link)
Oddly enough a history written by John Marshall of George Washington began with volume 1 of the 5 volume set devoted to the European experience in America, does exactly what Mann’s rich tapestry approach does – it offers a complicated and complex history in rich, vivid colors rather than bland, oversimplified loose threads offered in school textbooks, unconnected to any picture at all. When you start to see the threads woven together, all of sudden history comes alive as a fascinating magic carpet ride.
