In the book, American Holocaust, David Stannard responds to the American identity in a historical perspective. By looking back in the history of before Columbus, American, and the rest of the World, we might be curious to ask the questions that Standard asks, “Who were these people? Where had they come from? When had they come? How did they get where they were? Were there others like them elsewhere in this recently stumbled-upon New World?” (Stannard 8). Furthermore, Standard thinks that the most important question should not be “can it happen again?” But, it should be “can it be stopped?” (Prologue xiii). When Standard talks about “it,” he refers to the indigenous people who are “not openly been acknowledge, and become embarrassingly unwelcome trespassers whose legacy of past and ongoing persecution by the celebrants might spoil the festivities’ moral tone” (15). Thus, the issue that the author reflect on is how to stop holocaust.
In order to respond to the question, how to stop holocaust, Stannard provides historical facts for readers to understand his arguments. Although we only read the prologue and the first 15 pages of the book, we see that the author is responding to the most important question, how to stop holocaust. In other words, the author puts his facts and evidences on the table in the first 15 pages, then, he will make his arguments later in the book. Therefore, we see that he is providing a lot of historical information for the readers. Slowly, he is giving readers facts to understand where his view points are coming from. Thus, the author is interested in introducing the history of America. Mainly, in these 15 pages, Stannard answers the question that he proposed on page 8.