American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World

David E. Stannard's American Holocaust tells the history of the European colonization of America, portraying the world that lay before the arrival of Columbus, the mass brutality of European colonization, and the state and development of the European mind set that allowed for the mass-extinction of countless civilizations. The author begins by describing the multitude of American indigenous cultures and their subsequent devastation in order to dispel the myths of colonization in America.

The author lays a face to the state of European society during the colonization of the Americas and the horrors of poverty, disease, and overcrowded cities that led these peoples to look beyond their borders. The author also analyses the role played by Christianity and pre-Christian Europeans such as the ancient Greek in creating the notions of exploration and holy war that guided those who voyaged across the Atlantic.

Beginning the story of America by drawing a portrait of the land and peoples prior to Spanish arrival, the author disseminates the myth of America as a largely uninhabited, virgin land containing only the rare, barbarian group. The first section of the book draws a basic portrait of the diversity of pre-European American peoples and the great number of residents who occupied and used the land.

From highly advanced urban civilizations to advanced agricultural societies to the simplest hunter-gatherer subsistence tribes, according to Stannard the authors of history have failed to do justice to the truth of what was destroyed during the European conquest. Prior to Spanish conquest, the plurality of independent societies that flourished are largely unaccounted for as too many were destroyed without leaving enough information for later historians to reconstruct an accurate image of many native societies.