'exterminate All The Brutes'

By (author) Sven Lindqvist; By (author) Lindqvist, Sven
Short description/annotation
Taking his title from Joseph Conrad''s Heart of Darkness, Sven Lindqvist traces Europe''s dark history in Africa in the form of a travel diary and a historical examination of European imperialism and racism over the past two centuries.
Description
Over twenty years ago, Sven Lindqvist, one of the great pioneers of a new kind of experiential history writing, set out across Central Africa. Obsessed with a single line from Conrad''s The Heart of Darkness - Kurtz''s injunction to ''Exterminate All the Brutes'' - he braided an account of his experiences with a profound historical investigation, revealing to the reader with immediacy and cauterizing force precisely what Europe''s imperial powers had exacted on Africa''s peoples over the course of the preceding two centuries. Shocking, humane, crackling with imaginative energies and moral purpose, Exterminate All the Brutes stands as an impassioned, timeless classic. It is essential reading for anybody ready to come to terms with the brutal, racist history on which Europe built its wealth.
Biographical note
Sven Lindqvist (1932-2019) was born in Stockholm, and travelled extensively through Asia, Africa and Latin America. He was the author of thirty books, including A History of Bombing, Desert Divers, which was shortlisted for the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, and Exterminate All the Brutes, which formed the basis of a major HBO four-part documentary series by Academy Award-nominated writer and director Raoul Peck.
Promotional headline
Now the basis for a major HBO series by Academy Award-nominated director Raoul Peck: the classic genre-blending investigation revealing the true horror of Europe''s racist colonial past in Africa.