In many Eurocentric histories, Europe's discovery and conquest of the Americas is described as a great saga of achievement. In this seminal book, Ronald Wright tells the story of the people who already lived in the Americas at the time of the European conquest. It's a story of plague and invasion that crippled great civilizations and killed one fifth of the human race.

Weaving together contemporary accounts of native peoples with his own compelling historical narrative, Wright has assembled a powerful account of what he terms "a holocaust that began five centuries ago."