This study of Native American societies is adapted for younger readers from Charles C. Mann's best-selling 1491. Turning conventional wisdom on its head, the book argues that the people of North and South America lived in enormous cities, raised pyramids hundreds of years before the Egyptians did, engineered corn, and farmed the rainforests.

Presents a look at the technology of the Mayan civilization, describing their advances in agriculture, architecture, medicine, mathematics, the building of cities, and calendars.