Beyond Germs: Native Depopulation in North America challenges the hypothesis that the massive depopulation of the New World was primarily caused by diseases brought by Europeans, which scholars used for decades to explain the decimation of the indigenous peoples of North America. Contributors expertly argue that blaming germs downplays the active role of Europeans in inciting wars, destroying livelihoods, and erasing identities.

Catherine M. Cameron is a professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado Boulder. An archaeologist, she studies captives in prehistory and works in the American Southwest. She edited the book Invisible Citizens: Captives and Their Consequences.

Paul Kelton is a professor of history and a member of the executive board of the Indigenous Studies Program at the University of Kansas. He is the author of Epidemics and Enslavement: Biological Catastrophe in the Native Southeast, 1492-1715 and Cherokee Medicine, Colonial Germs: An Indigenous Nation's Fight against Smallpox, 1518-1824.

Alan C. Swedlund is a professor emeritus and former chair of the Anthropology Department at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is the author of Shadows in the Valley: A Cultural History of Illness, Death, and Loss in New England, 1840-1916.