"Based on extensive research and comparative analyses, this volume recounts the history of five continents over an extended period of time. From the beginning of European expansion the question was posed: what were the 'empire tools' that gave Europe its military superiority, even before the industrial revolution? What was it that enabled Europeans to withstand life-threatening tropical diseases and to control indigenous populations? This book gives a fresh and wide-ranging view of the construction and collapse of the modern colonial empires of Europe, the United States of America and Japan."--BOOK JACKET.