Noble David Cook explains, in vivid detail and sweeping scope, how the conquest of the New World was achieved
by a handful of Europeans - not by the sword, but by deadly disease. The Aztec and Inca empires with their teeming
millions were destroyed by a few hundred Europeans whose most important weapons, though the conquerors did not
realize it at the time, were diseases previously unknown in the Americas. The end result of the colonizing experience
in the Americas, whether of the Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, English, or French, was the collapse of native society.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1. In the Path of the Hurricane : Disease and the Disappearance of the Peoples of the Caribbean, 1492-1518
Chapter 2. The Deaths of Aztec Cuitlahuac and Inca Huayna Capac : The First New World Pandemics
Chapter 3. Settling In : Epidemics and Conquest to the End of the First Century
Chapter 4. Regional Outbreaks from the 1530s to Century's End
Chapter 5. New Arrivals : Peoples and Illnesses from 1600-1650
