Conquest of America: How The Indian Nations Lost Their Continent

by Hans Koning

Book by Koning, Hans

Genres: History, Nonfiction

150 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1993

About the author

Biographical information written by the family of Hans Koning

Reviews

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty quick review of the treatment of indigenous people of the Americas since the time of first arrival of Columbus until when the book was written (1990s). Even though it’s short it is jam packed with information of colonial thought and policy regarding Natives and how they became an obstacle that must’ve been destroyed if Manifest Destiny were to be executed properly. According to the colonists, they had every right to steal the natives land and drive them away because they were not using it for capitalist production purposes, therefore not realizing the full productive capacity of such land. Of course this productive capacity could only be reached with private property rights and the subjugation of nature to capitalist demands. There was a part of the book where a US Department of Energy member (I believe not too long before the book was released) had said that nuclear waste should be dumped in Native American reservations because they were more in tune with nature and therefore could manage it better. I believe that way of thinking summarizes the entire relationship between Natives and the US pretty succinctly.

[Mckinley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book or one very like it should be read by everyone preferably in a setting open to discussion and critical thinking. This particular discussion of the conquest of the Americas is brief, easy to read and understand, highlights the key issues within a historical framework. That is, it used primary resources of the day: documents and illustrations from the time to provide evidence. While not an academic work with footnotes, there is a bibliography of sources to pursue at the end.
Koning is an established author writing both non-fiction and fiction and plays along with an extensive list of publications (International Herald Tribune, New York Times, New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Harpers Magazine, and The Nation).

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book should be required reading in high school and college American history courses. I feel ashamed of how much information in it was new to me. Education always derives from someone's point of view, and there is much that needs to be corrected in the traditional tale of the founding of this nation. I have come to think that the violence that plagues this country derives in large part from repression-- so many unacknowledged, serial crimes, which impact upon all of us, though we may not understand how.