Exterminate All The Brutes

Exterminate All the Brutes

ReviewAuschwitz, Mr. Lindqvist says, was "the modern industrial application of a policy of extermination on which European world domination had long since rested." -- The New York Times Book Review, Raleigh TrevelyanLindqvist's disturbing, brilliant work of historical sleuthing deserves to be taken up in a thousand classrooms. -- Voice Literary SupplementSven Lindqvist is one of the most original and imaginative authors working at the end of the twentieth century. 'Exterminate All the Brutes' is serious stuff indeed, but it is written with brio and humor, and it unfolds like the telling of a detective story. -- The Guardian [London]"Exterminate All the Brutes" is a unique study of Europe's history in Africa, written in the form of a travel diary. Sven Lindqvist takes us on a daring intellectual trip to "the heart of the darkness" of the European mind and its attitude toward the "Dark Continent." Like Edward Said's Orientalism, Lindqvist's book traces the legacy of European explorers, missionaries, politicians, and historians in Africa from the late eighteenth century onward. Lindqvist also examines the roots of European genocide, setting Conrad's Heart of Darkness in context and helping us to understand the most terrifying of Conrad's lines: "Exterminate all the brutes."Amazon.com ReviewIn a chilling and controversial book, Swedish author Sven Lindqvist recounts the grisly history of 19th century European imperialism and its connection to a legacy of genocide. Moving crudely through present-day Africa while tracing the routes of British conquerors, Lindqvist tells how armed troops massacred 11,000 Sudanese with only 48 British deaths in 1898 and how the King of Ashanti was made to kiss the feet of British officers in 1896. Lindqvist doesn't stop in Africa, writing of the extermination of the Tasmanian aborigines and other atrocities inflicted on native people. He then connects those acts with those of the Nazi regime, showing how rampant imperialism sowed the seeds of the Holocaust. A moving account of the forces of history.From The Washington PostIn spare but powerful prose, Lindqvist manages to weave together an impressive variety of themes to point to the continuity between prejudices and acts separated by continents and centuries.