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This very readable book challenges the ways in which we think about the course of modern history and the present state of the world. Highly praised on its publication in Australia, and already being translated into three other languages, Conquest draws on examples from across the world to reveal the dramatic and often bloody process engaged in by societies as they attempt to supplant the hold that the pre-existing inhabitants enjoy over their lands.
Effortlessly moving back as far as the Aztecs and the founding of Constantinople, and forward to the climactic conflicts of our present time, the book ranges across countless examples, from Columbus’ discovery of the ‘New World’ to the presently changing ethnic composition of Los Angeles; from the Japanese conquest of Hokkaido to the German invasion of Poland.
In doing so, Conquest shows how the process of claiming a territory is a never-ending one that shapes the history of the particular societies, as well as the world at large. More importantly, it creates a new paradigm of supplanting societies that challenges our understanding of the course of modern history and the fundamental forces that have helped to shape it.
book reviews
- BBC History Magazine
“...Wide ranging and vigorously written...a clear and stimulating read.”
- Australian
"In his latest offering, Conquest: A New History of the Modern World, David Day attempts nothing less than to uncover the central dynamic in the establishment and growth of nations and empire. Karl Marx saw class struggle as the driving engine of history. In contrast, the French historian Fernand Braudel nominated geography as primary. In contrast to both, Dr Day posits the dynamics of conquest, and the ‘genocidal imperative’, as the key determinants in historical development. West Australian “ What could be more important than discussion, analysis and dispute about the forces that have shaped human society, without an understanding of which the present cannot be appreciated or the future sensibly speculated about. ... Day's wide-ranging investigations and lively writing give the idea a freshness that makes the book a pleasure to read and an eye-opener. ... This is history on the grand scale, but with an eye to the telling detail. ..."
- Herald Sun
"Much of world history has been of one society supplanting another. We can see it in the demise of the Incas and the Aztecs at the hands of the Spanish; the devastating European conquest of North America; and the continuing struggle between Jews and Arabs over Israel. Chapter by chapter, Day systematically breaks down and examines the critical elements in this process of taking over. Day, in his follow-up to his Claiming a Continent, sweeps expertly and effortlessly across the globe and into the pages of history to back up his arguments."
- Australian Financial Review, Best Reads of
2005
“Never forget we are but temporary occupiers of the land. The waves of migration and invasion reshape the human landscape in ways that often create bitter enmity. But conquest has been the method of transport whereby we have journeyed down the road called progress. A dark paradox."
- Teacher
“...as Day clearly demonstrates, the dynamic of conquest is one of the key defining aspects of history in the last 500 years. Conquest is an extremely challenging book, particularly for those in ‘new world’ countries such as Australia and the USA, as it confronts many of the underlying assumptions regarding national identity and legitimacy of tenure. "
- Emeritus Professor David Fieldhouse, Jesus
College, Cambridge, author of The Colonial Empires
“In Conquest David Day poses the question fundamental to all studies of imperial expansion by all societies: ‘how does a society that moves onto the land of another make that place its own?’ To find an answer he examines ten common strategies, ranging from striking a legal claim to colonization. This is a highly original approach. It demonstrates a spectacular knowledge of contrasting situations across the globe and forces the reader to rethink old certainties. It should be read by all students of ‘supplanting societies’ of all races and in all continents."
- Judges' comments, NSW Premier’s
Prize
“David Day's thesis is simple but controversial: it is that no nation or people now exists who have been in continuous occupation of the land which they regard as their own, and that there is none that did not seize the land on which they live from some previous possessors by force of conquest. This deceptively simple, indeed obvious, conclusion based on wide reading has profound implications for the ways in which we view the exercise of power, the notion of ‘just war’, the theoretical underpinnings of any modern nation's right to exist. It also profoundly challenges the basic polarity of postcolonial studies, that between colonizer and colonized."
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