content: Every chapter was a revelation about the demographics of North and South America before Columbus. Most american indian populations were agricultural with substantial population centers with running water and covered sewers, unlike the European cities of that same time period.The scale of the devastation caused by the introduction of European diseases, particularly smallpox, is so immense as to be incomprehensible. The rate of fatality in the European black death episodes was 1 in 3, while that for the smallpox plagues in the americas was 19 in 20.