1492 - Le clash des continents

@SanFernandoCurt

Obviously "SanFernandoCurt" doesn't know a whole lot about history.

When the Europeans first arrived in the Americas, they were mainly after one thing: Gold. There are numerous factual writings of how they would arrive on the continent and begin looking for gold instead of preparing to live.

The Native Americans were agricultural geniuses who taught the Europeans how to farm. There is much evidence that the Americans had massive cultural centers that could be seen and heard from miles away.

I refer you to the book "Lies My Teacher Told Me" as a necessary read for anyone who wants to learn the truth about history in America.

Marxism has codified the great crimes of Western civilization in constantly changing terms, to conform to relentlessly evolving cultural history. First, the general term was "colonialism", and when European colonies were no more, and Europe flourished, it changed to "neo-colonialism". That gradually puffed up to "imperialism", which can mean - anything, really. Today it's virtually derogatory terminology for anything American or Northern European.

"America Before Columbus" spends much of its vastly wasted time prattling something it calls "biological imperialism", which boils down to "European imperialists took the potato and gave nothing back". We evil honkies pollute genetically! In the very germ of plants! Is there no end to our iniquity? The propaganda is hysterically heavy-handed with super-bad stuff like Christianity constantly bashed through unsubtle editing and imagery. In one of many missteps, the program implies Europeans even cursed the new world with pigs, although it pictures the collared peccary, merely pig-like and native ONLY to the Western Hemisphere. And what about the claim that the Americas were filled with urban centers, and had higher population than Europe at the time? This claim is made on zero evidence. What? Were there census-takers in the 15th century? Native Americans lived mostly hunter-gatherer, neolithic lives of grinding hardship - walking for transportation, surviving vagaries of nature. Lifespan in those conditions is 30 years - tops. Yeah... it was one big communal paradise. Hogwash! History of the last 500 years on these two Western continents is nothing less than epic - tragic, triumphant, sad and ridiculous. It needs fair account and appraisal after decades getting festooned with this kind of silly, failed dogma.

This is one of those riveting documentaries that comes along once in a while. The cinematography is beautiful. Using many motion shots over landscapes and forests and computer animation, a useful overview of the conquest of the Americas and the Columbian Exchange is given. Many of the ideas are strongly reminiscent of Jarrod Diamond's book Guns, Germs and Steel.

Contrary to the sentiments expressed in the inexplicable and unjustified rant by SanFernandoCurt in his review here, the language is relatively neutral and non-political -- it tells it like it is. There were many things -- good and bad -- that resulted from the Columbian Exchange. There is no hint of "Marxism" or spin in this documentary.

There is mention of biological imperialism once in the second episode. I'll admit that the 100 million population estimate is at the high end of the range -- Europe only had 60 million in 1492. But why not? As the documentary states the Americas are a fertile land that was managed by the natives and is 10 times the size of Europe. Diseases like smallpox and influenza probably wiped out 90%+ of the native American population.

Much of this documentary is NOT about America before Columbus. They spend a lot of time talking about parallel developments in Europe and the European "discovery" and invasion of the New World. They also were not detailed or comprehensive in their discussion of pre-Columbian civilizations. I wanted to know more about the many diverse and advanced societies that rose and fell across two continents prior to Europeans but that I've only heard a little about, but it was more of a shallow overview of only a few small areas. How do you title a documentary "America Before Columbus" and then spend the majority of the time talking about Europe?

I think people who have never read Howard Zinn and don't know the true history of the conquest of the New World will learn something, but I didn't learn anything I didn't already know. I don't know about anyone else, but I get tired of learning about every country and land's history based on its contact with Europeans. I thought this would be different, but it wasn't. I was very disappointed. However, I'm giving it 6 out of 10 stars because others could stand to learn something from this documentary.

I have to agree with the review titled "Misleading Title." It spends an inordinate amount of time covering America AFTER Columbus. That was disappointing because I was looking forward to learning what the title promised but didn't deliver. As for being political and biased, there's enough of that to go around here. I can't say it was subtle nor tremendously obvious. Nor can I say either way is appreciated. I will agree with those who value the production quality, it is good. But I reiterate that you should not expect it to spend the bulk of its time on America BEFORE Columbus. Disappionting.