Peter Kriger

No hominid was ever built to rule an empire. The equipment we carry for reading a face, keeping a promise, fearing the disapproval of the people around us, and feeling another person's pain was forged for groups small enough that everyone knew everyone.

Some films refuse you everything. They withhold explanation. They dwell on rain and rust and silent faces. They impose a length that feels, for the first twenty minutes, like an insult. And then they move into you and stay for the rest of your life.

For five centuries we have told ourselves a flattering story: that the peoples who lived along the Great Lakes and across the Canadian Shield were simple, and that the newcomers who arrived by ship were advanced. This book takes that story apart, gently and completely.

Un rey bárbaro saqueó Roma en el año 410, y mil quinientos años después, todavía se culpa a los adolescentes. Ellos lo ignoran. Tampoco lo sabían, por cierto, los constructores de catedrales, los novelistas de terror ni los ingenieros que ahora entrenan máquinas en salas oscuras.