Description
Book SynopsisFor four hundred years--from the first Spanish assaults against the Arawak people of Hispaniola in the 1490s to the US Army''s massacre of Sioux Indians at Wounded Knee in the 1890s--the indigenous inhabitants of North and South America endured an unending firestorm of violence. During that time the native population of the Western Hemisphere declined by as many as 100 million people. Indeed, as historian David E. Stannard argues in this stunning new book, the European and white American destruction of the native peoples of the Americas was the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world. Stannard begins with a portrait of the enormous richness and diversity of life in the Americas prior to Columbus''s fateful voyage in 1492. He then follows the path of genocide from the Indies to Mexico and Central and South America, then north to Florida, Virginia, and New England, and finally out across the Great Plains and Southwest to California and the North Pacific Coast. Stannard r
Trade Reviewhighly informative book * Socialist Standard *
vivid and relentless ... meticulous analysis ... a devastating reassessment of the Conquest as nothing less than a holy war * Kirkus Reviews *
Table of ContentsPrologue Part I: Before Columbus Part II: Pestilence and Genocide Part III: Sex, Race, and Holy War Appendixes Appendix I: On Pre-Columbian Settlement and Population Appendix II: On Racism and Genocide Acknowledgments Notes Index
