Product Description

The essays in this study reassess evidence about the plausability of the widely accepted guns and germs theories which put forward firepower advantages and disease importation as the two main causes of European expansion overseas. All argue that these theories are important but oversimplified. The effectiveness of firepower and disease impacts on specific groups of New World indigines were always conditioned by time, place and cultural characteristics. Long range communication control was sometimes more important. Above all, motives driving invasions and conquests were often more influential than means and methodologies.

Product Details

• Published on: 2001-06-16
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

Review
Selected as an Outstanding Academic Title of 2002 by Choice (a publication of the Association of College & Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association)
'"Raudzens has edited a stunning new collection of essays aimed at reassessing paradigms of conquest that attribute European succeess to superior weaponry or disease...Taken together the eight essays in this collection represent an enormously important new direction in colonialist studies. Highest recommendations for all collections.'
"Choice, 2002.
'"a well-selected and thought-provoking volume'
Patricia A. Crouch, "Sixteenth Century Journal, 2002.