Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492-1650 / Edition 1

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.

ISBN-13: 9780521627306

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Publication Date: 02-13-1998

Pages: 268

Product Dimensions: 6.69(w) x 8.46(h) x 0.67(d)

Series: New Approaches to the Americas

Table of Contents

Introduction; 1. In the path of the hurricane: disease and the disappearance of the peoples of the Caribbean, 1492–1518; 2. The deaths of Aztec Cuitlahuac and Inca Huayna Capac: the first New World pandemics; 3. Settling in: epidemics and conquest to the end of the first century; 4. Regional outbreaks from the 1530s to century's end; 5. New arrivals: peoples and illnesses from 1600–1650; Conclusion.