The Conquest of America (La Conquête de l'Amérique) Tzvetan Todorov; Trans. by Richard Howard

This is a great book. It explores what happens when two different cultures meet.

The French writer and critic, Tzvetan Todorov, approaches the subject as a semiotician, a student of signs, interested in the systems of signification through which cultures articulate the world and enable it to have meaning.

Spain's conquest of America in the 16th century, he says, led to ''the greatest genocide in human history.''

An estimated 90 percent of Central America's population perished in 50 years. Last year, Jonathan Culler remarked in these pages that ''The Conquest of America,'' translated by Richard Howard, is ''an engaging book that presents fascinating and often disturbing material clearly." -- New York Times.