American Holocaust; The Conquest of the New World Essay Example

campaign.

He develops his thesis in way that it seems proper in its perspective. He does not explain the plain facts but provides excellent analysis of every phenomenon. Sometimes his analysis lacks the objectivity that a historical work demands.

He devotes the first chapter to describe cultural richness and diversity Native American civilization. But some times, his scholarly works crosses the limits of knowledge and enters in the domain of exaggeration and fictitious idealism.

For example, his claim that native American culture was well established and advanced when European was trying to excel in socio-cultural life (p.11) is supported by any historical evidence and it is a verified and verifiable fact that European ere ahead of Native American civilization.

Book is full of such overstatement like “the health and life expectancy of the native Americans had been far superior to that of European prior to the Columbian invasion.”

The second section of the book, named under the collective name of “Sex, Race, and Holy War", focuses on the mass genocide against naïve Americans by the Europeans.

But this section is also marked with some historical inaccuracies as it says that “the totals exterminations of many American Indian peoples and the near-extermination of others, in numbers that eventually totaled close to 100,000,000.”

This assumption seems historically incorrect as no historical evidence is provided. He further asserts that this population of 100 million was reduced by 95%. Stannard arguments are well-built but sometimes they surpass the limits of scholarly work.

He further elaborates how European ideals and socio-cultural structures of middle ages i.e. warfare, torture, slavery were brought to

Americas where it has fatal effects. But he simply negates the other positive aspects of European culture that hitherto plays an important role in the progress and development of the Americas. So in this regard his thesis not only seems exaggerated but also equipped with intellectual prejudice and distortions of facts.

The strength of the books relies in its bibliography that mostly quotes the original and primary sources. Stannard does not draw on secondary works of other writers but he has researched the old chronicles and historical documents to produce his thesis.

Strength of the book is its lucid style. Stannard does not sacrifice the clarity of his arguments on the altar of verbosity bit narrates the facts as plainly as possible.

He sometimes produces excellent comparisons, for example he compares the American holocaust with the German holocaust on the premise that both were motivated by the Christian values of purity and purgation.  He further compares the native songs i.e. Native American cultural manifestations with the European portraits i.e. cultural expressions of European culture and produces some excellent analysis.

While illustrating the pathos and miseries of the Native Americans, he does not blur it with sentimentality.

American Holocaust; The Conquest of the New World is a work of historical and intellectual. It paves the way for future scholars the work on its premise.

David Stannard destroys a number of historically popular and fabricated myths of fraternity, equality and brethren, and illustrates through American Holocaust that what actually happened on the American continents soon after the arrival of Columbus.

References

Stannard, David. (1992). American Holocaust; The Conquest of

the New World. Oxford University Press. New York.