Missionstheologische Schriften (review)
and pace of the population decline. Henige convincingly criticizes several accounts of the epidemics which putatively swept through the New World after the Spanish arrival, but at times the reader is left wondering whether he means to argue that the epidemics never happened at all. The “contact does not equal contagion” chapter cries out for more discussion of what we know about the epidemiology of the various diseases blamed for the depopulation. What do we know about the spread of these diseases? Are there better-documented cases of their introduction into unexposed populations that we could use? What evidence do we have about the epidemics? In addition, Henige makes several unjustified epistemological claims that weaken an otherwise excellent case. For example, after an incisive criticism of several arguments by archaeologists about the timing of apparent depopulations in North America, Henige pointlessly begins to criticize archaeology by making specious comparisons between archaeological and historical argumentation. A lack of archaeological remains of settlements is not the same as a lack of written materials from a period of Roman history, and it is unclear what point Henige is attempting to make. In other cases, Henige moves from arguing that the high counters are not scientific enough, since they do not make adequate attempts to falsify their arguments, to implicitly arguing that the scientific method is not applicable to the “variety, complexity, and diversity” of history (p. 165). Henige’s exhaustive criticism of the high counters is a useful check on the often specious nature of current estimates. However, his main point could have been made in a far more succinct manner. In sum, the author presents too little demographic, archaeological, or epidemiological theory to allow the reader to make a conclusive judgment about what can or cannot be known from the available evidence.