An international bestseller, Stolen Continents is a history of the Americas unlike any other. This fascinating volume chronicles the conquest and survival of five great American cultures—in their own words. Ronald Wright gives voice to the Aztec, Maya, Inca, Cherokee, and Iroquois, quoting their authentic speech and writing and illuminating their unique views of history. Through their eloquent words, we relive their strange, tragic experiences.
Covering the five hundred years since Europeans first set foot in the New World, Wright weaves together contemporary accounts with his own incisive historical narrative to create an indispensable record, one that is powerful, vivid, and accurate.

RONALD WRIGHT is an award-winning historian, essayist, and the author of ten books of fiction and nonfiction published in sixteen languages and more than forty countries. His 2004 CBC Massey Lectures, A Short History of Progress, was a #1 national bestseller, won the Libris Award for Nonfiction Book of the Year, and was the basis for the Martin Scorsese–produced documentary Surviving Progress. His other bestselling nonfiction books include the BC Book Prize–winning history What Is America?; Stolen Continents, which won the Gordon Montador Award; and Among the Maya. His first novel, A Scientific Romance, won the 1997 David Higham Prize for Fiction and was a Globe and Mail, Sunday Times, and New York Times book of the year. Wright contributes criticism to the Times Literary Supplement, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other publications. He lives in British Columbia.

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“For five centuries, the Indians of the Americas have doggedly recorded the shocking story of their subjugation by whites....Ronald Wright has woven their voices into a compelling narrative.”
—The Globe and Mail
“Ronald Wright turns his considerable narrative skill to the other side of the story that began in 1492....This is a fine and thought-provoking rendering of what [he] calls a ‘holocaust that began five centuries ago.’”
—The Washington Post

“A stunning book, a non-fiction tour de force.”
—Calgary Herald

“Finally, history through Indian eyes. It’s about time....And Wright’s a first-class storyteller.”
—Toronto Star

“A magnificent feat of research, writing, and perception adjustment....Makes history come alive.”
—Seattle Times

“[Wright] writes brilliantly and with a very uncommon level of empathy and sensitivity....No one is better at showing how the past infuses and, in most cases, continues to blight the present.”
—Larry McMurtry, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lonesome Dove

“[This] is the most gut-wrenching account of man’s inhumanity to man I have ever read. Superbly rendered and ruthlessly truthful, the voices of the victims conjured by Ronald Wright tell us the diabolic truth about ourselves.”
—Farley Mowat

“A thoroughly documented polemical work of great persuasive force.”
—The Sunday Telegraph (U.K.)

“Moving and insightful....Serves to illuminate the moral complexities of our past and to remind us that much business begun in 1492 remains unfinished.”
—Houston Chronicle

“Stolen Continents [is] among the most useful, most interesting, best informed, and most wrenching reflections yet inspired by...Columbus’s voyage.”
—Boston Globe

“Excellent....Redresses the balance between the invaders and the invaded.”
—The Sunday Times (U.K.)

“These are real stories, told by a wonderful storyteller.”
—The Gazette (Montreal)

“A powerful lament for the American Indians....All who are interested in the clash between European and American cultures should read this well-written book....They will be moved to compassion and outrage.”
—History Today