Rivers of Blood, Rivers of Gold: Europe's Conquest of Indigenous Peoples [Hardcover]

Mark Cocker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2000

The past five centuries a shocking series of confrontations have witnessed between European nations and millions of indigenous peoples, and these cultural encounters still resonate strongly to this day. Rivers of Blood, Rivers of Gold is an essential book for understanding the true impact of imperialism. Beautifully and passionately written, it provides a judicious and exhaustively researched indictment of European exploitation. Focusing on four collisions between Europeans and indigenous cultures -- the conquest of Mexico, the British onslaught on the Tasmanian Aborigines, the uprooting of the Apaches, and the German campaign against the tribes of Southwest Africa -- Mark Cocker illuminates the fundamental experiences that underlay the colonial experience around the globe.

Beyond making a persuasive -- and balanced -- case against colonialism, Cocker also sustains a riveting, often harrowing story. Rivers of Blood, Rivers of Gold is narrative history in its most impressive form -- engaging, accessible, and thought provoking.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This account of the brutalities of European colonialism concentrates on four episodes--the destruction of the Aztecs, the exterminations of the Tasmanians and the Herero, and the cowing of the Apache. Starting with the general statement that the expansion of European Christian civilization has been at the expense of tribal peoples throughout the world, who were seen as either objects for exploitation or study or as simply surplus, Mark Cocker argues that the pattern was set by the encounter with the Aztecs--Spaniards hot from the reconquista were not in the mood to be tolerant of blood-sacrificing cannibals, no matter how urbane and sophisticated. Poorer peoples such as the Tasmanians and the Herero he sees as simply victims; only the Apache made the whole process so costly that they became heroes to their conquerors. Some of this is special pleading; Cocker neglects the role of disease and sometimes talks as if Europeans were uniquely bad--compared to, say, Genghis Khan?--and his concentration on selected case studies ignores the issues raised by more complex cases such as India or the Maori. Nonetheless, it is a terrifying indictment of atrocities all the worse for the sanctimonious efficiency with which they were carried out. --Roz Kaveney, Amazon.co.uk

From Publishers Weekly

Advancing the revisionist tradition, Cocker's book demonstrates the gruesome similarities among events usually seen as radically disparate: the Spanish conquest of Mexico, the British takeover of Tasmania, the subjugation of the Apache in the American Southwest and the German wars in Southwest Africa. Cocker, a writer for the British Guardian, demonstrates that in all four cases the same processes were at work, and each produced the same results: the devastation of native people (Cocker estimates that as many as 50 million were killed). He describes military efforts by the Europeans, from the Spanish conquest of the great Mexican city of Tenochtitl n to the German ambush and massacre of women and children in the tiny African village of Hornzranz. The vestiges of colonial cruelty, he argues, continue even in a world that supposedly abandoned the horrors of colonialism after WWII. "For large numbers of Europeans and those of European descent," he writes, "tribal peoples remain a defeated and immaterial branch of humanity. We have a duty to make their story part of our own." Wisely, Cocker is not solely Eurocentric in his condemnations; throughout, he acknowledges that barbarities can be found all over the globe and throughout history, giving his account greater sweep. Thoughtful and thought-provoking, this superbly written book deserves a wide readership. Illus. not seen by PW. Agent, Sloan Harris, ICM. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Grove Pr; 1st Ed. (U.S.) edition (May 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802116663
• ISBN-13: 978-0802116666
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,657,027 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars simplistic, June 12, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Rivers of Blood, Rivers of Gold: Europe's Conquest of Indigenous Peoples (Hardcover)

Crocker is a journalist who has previously proven his ability to write thoughtful, well-researched books that sell disappointing numbers. It is hard to blame the man for wanting to sell enough books to make some money. It is somewhat harder to take the amount of gore in Rivers of Blood, but one has to concede that he has the formula down. To sell books one must write about a) bad guys, b) harrowing, boodthirsty murder, c) really simple ideas. Here we have world class bad guys in the Europeans who set out to conquer the world by murdering all the people who lived everywhere else. The fact that these people fought back and sometimes won adds drama. But, hello? What about the role or European diseases, or the role of a European economic system that surely did as much as European weapons to destroy the non-European civilizations. Bloodthirsty conquest is as old as history. If the only thing that happened in the sixteenth century was that a bunch of European guys got on boats and set out to conquer other people, there would be no news to report. Mark Crocker misses most of the really important aspects of the Eurppean conquest of the world. I prefer my history more complex and closer to reality. Try reading Bullough's Pond if you really want to know what the American Indians were up against.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Epic Tragedy. One of the Best Books I Have Ever Read., May 19, 2001

By 

Edward Haworth - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rivers of Blood, Rivers of Gold: Europe's Conquest of Indigenous Peoples (Hardcover)

The premise of the book has become so cliched that its fundamental truth has almost become obscured. Cocker uncovers in painstaking detail the results of European colonialism in four areas of the world. Without ever romanticizing the societies (the bloody nature of the Aztecs is particularly stressed) that are conquered, he paints a tragic picture that moved me to the point of tears more than once. A valuable antidote to apologists for European/Western Imperialism.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent,, February 19, 2008

By 

H. Buckley (Ireland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rivers of Blood, Rivers of Gold: Europe's Conquest of Indigenous Peoples (Paperback)

The book shows in vivid detail how many groups who have developed a superiority of power/technology etc frequently use it in a most base and grasping manner, warping their own morality to justify it. Rather than the simplistic European/American(bad) vs nobel savage (good) conflict that some other reviewers took from it,it demonstrated the all universal human trait of brutality and genocide in the pursuit of plunder and greed. The readyness to which societies on the one hand professed education,morality etc descended to levels of cruelty that begars belief in clear and systematic and recurring patterns used to self justify it makes for an absorbing book.