The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, and Capitalism in Seventeenth-Century North America and the Caribbean
256 pp, $25 pbk; ISBN 978-1-58367-663-9
By Gerald Horne
Reviewed by Martin Empson
“In the introduction to his latest book historian Gerald Horne makes clear the consequences of European settlement in the Americas:
Though disease spread by these interlopers is often trotted out to explain the spectacular downturn in the fortunes of indigenous Americans, genocide – in virtually every meaning of the term, including volitional acts by invading settlers – is the proximate cause of this towering mountain of cadavers. Thus, even when enslaved Africans chose suicide, which they were often forced to do, it would be follow to suggest that enslavers were guiltless.
It is a deliberately provocative conclusion and the tragedies that resulted from European colonialism are horrifically documented in Horne’s book. But his book is more than a simple description of the genocide against indigenous peoples and African slaves. It explains the pattern of colonialism in the Americas through the development of capitalism….”
Read the review at ResoluteReader
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