Product Description

The history of the world has been the history of peoples on the move, as they occupy new lands and establish their claims over them. Almost invariably, this has meant the violent dispossession of the previous inhabitants. Whether it is the Normans in England, the Chinese in Tibet, the Germans in Poland, the Indonesians in West Papua, or the British and Americans in North America, the claiming of other people's lands and the supplanting of one people by another has shaped the history of societies from the ancient past to the present day. David Day tells the story of how this happened - the ways in which invaders have triumphed and justified conquest which, as he shows is a bloody and often prolonged process that can last centuries. And while each individual conquest is ultimately unique, nevertheless they often share a number of qualities, from the re-naming of the conquered land and the invention of myth to justify what has taken place, to the exploitation of the conquered resources and people, and even to the outright slaughter of the original inhabitants. Above all, as Day shows in this hugely bold and ambitious book, conquest can have deep and long-lasting consequences - for the conquered, the conquerors, and for the wider course of world history.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #144529 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-27
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

Review
Day has an unfailing eye for vivid, arresting detail... he has a genius for comparison, and brilliantly secretes implicit morals inside apparently dispassionate facts. (Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, TLS )

Wide ranging and vigorously written....concise and strongly- argued... a clear and stimulating read. (BBC History Magazine. Jeremy Black. )

Customer Reviews

not as expected
Those expecting something along the lines of Jared Diamond's "Guns germs and steel" and "collapse" are probably going to be left wanting something more. The book is primarily an account of events that lead to people moving and supplanting other people in far away lands (numerous examples are cited). A framework (like the five points of Diamond in collapse) is missing. the book is definitely highly readable and accessible for everyone, still though bits and pieces of a framework are definitely there. No specific chapter is devoted to it. Through the account of events the author provides, it is possible to project into the future and even agree completely with him on the last paragraph of the book that a coming of age of people around the globe will result in everybody being more sensitive to moves in their own land by other people. A more game theoretic approach perhaps from start to finish on how to achieve this (those being more sensitive or willing to accommodate moving people than others stand to lose more) would be a most valuable addition to the book and would get 5/5.
if you are vaguely familiar with the story of colonization then it is probably best to skip it altogether and go for Diamond's books