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American Holocaust: Columbus and the Conquest of the New World. By David E. Stannard. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. 400 pp. $26.00.
It is hard to review a book when three quarters of it is an eloquent and powerful statement of much needed revelation while the remaining quarter is pretentious fol de rol. This is the case with David E. Stannard's American Holocaust. Although a reviewer's temptation is always strong to show personal superiority by ripping into nonsense, let me postpone that egotism in order to pay deserved tribute first to great merit.
In essence the book comprises two main features: descriptions of the horrible bloodshed suffered by American Indians as a consequence of European "discovery"; and an explanation of the evolution of European ideas that culminated in the genocide of the title. The factual descriptions are more gruesomely thorough and convincing than any I have seen elsewhere. The explanations are unpersuasive, sometimes plain silly.
The word genocide was not chosen casually. Stannard repeats and stresses it, and does not tolerate efforts to whittle away culpability by semantic games. This is a strongly moralizing book. "It is impossible," he climaxes,...