Charles C. Mann
Quick Facts
Biography
Charles C. Mann (born 1955) is an American journalist and author, specializing in scientific topics. His book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus won the National Academies Communication Award for best book of the year. He is the coauthor of four books, and contributing editor for Science, The Atlantic Monthly, and Wired.
Biography
Mann has written for Fortune, The New York Times, Smithsonian, Technology Review, Vanity Fair, and The Washington Post. In 2005 he wrote 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, followed in 2011 by 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created. He served as a judge for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award in 2012.
He is a three-time National Magazine Award finalist and a recipient of writing awards from the American Bar Association, the American Institute of Physics, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the Lannan Foundation. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts with his wife and children.
In 2018, Mann published The Wizard and the Prophet, which details two competing theories about the future of agriculture, population, and the environment. The titular "wizard" Mann refers to is Norman Borlaug, the Nobel Peace Prize winner credited with developing the Green Revolution and saving 1 billion people from starvation. Mann refers to William Vogt, an early proponent of population control, as the "prophet."