When Columbus first landed in the New World there were about a hundred million Americans - a fifth of the human race. Most fell victim to imported epidemics, Christian fanaticism and sheer barbarity. Sophisticated worlds were sacked, great art destroyed, wealth stolen. But did all the New World people die, and so fast that they had nothing to say? In fact there is an Indian side to the story, though we have not been told it before. In telling it now, Ronald Wright quotes the actual speech and writing of five peoples - Aztec, Maya, Inca, Cherokee and Iroquois - through five centuries. We can relive their strange, tragic experience and see ourselves, the European invaders, through their shrewd eyes. Unlike Asia and Africa, the New World never saw its colonizers leave. But neither have the ancient nations disappeared. In the Andes, ten million speak the Inca language. If Guatemala had majority rule it would be a Maya republic. In Peru, the murder of Atahuallpa and the bizarre deeds of the Shining Path are parts of the same story; just as Canada's betrayal of the Iroquois led to the Mohawk revolt at Oka in 1990. The story is not over yet.