Exterminate all the brutes

Author(s)

Bibliographic Information

Exterminate all the brutes

Sven Lindqvist ; translated from Swedish by Joan Tate

New Press : Distributed by W.W. Norton, 1996

  • : pbk

Other Title

Utrota varenda jävel

Exterminate all the brutes : one man's odyssey into the heart of darkness and the origins of European genocide

Uniform Title

Utrota varenda jävel

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Description and Table of Contents

Volume

ISBN 9781565840027

Description

Written in the form of a travel diary, this is an historical examination of European racism over the past two centuries, and a study of Europe's dark history in Africa. Readers are taken on an intellectual journey into a "darkness" which the author argues is a product not of Africa, but of the deepest recesses of the European mind and its attitudes toward the "dark continent". The book sets out to place Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" in context, and to trace the legacy of the writings of European explorers and missionaries, politicians and historians, from the late-18th century onwards, in an effort to help readers to understand Conrad's disturbing line, "Exterminate all the brutes".
Volume

: pbk ISBN 9781565843592

Description

"Exterminate All the Brutes" is a searching examination of Europe’s dark history in Africa and the origins of genocide. Using Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness as his point of departure, Sven Lindqvist takes us on a haunting tour through the colonial past, interwoven with a modern-day travelogue. Retracing the steps of European explorers, missionaries, politicians, and historians in Africa from the late eighteenth century onward, the author exposes the roots of genocide in Africa via his own journey through the Saharan desert. As Lindqvist shows, fantasies not merely of white superiority but of actual extermination—"cleansing" the earth of the so-called lesser races—deeply informed European colonialism and racist ideology that ultimately culminated in Europe’s own Holocaust. Chosen as one of the Best Books of 1998 by the New Internationalist, which called it "a beautifully written integration of criticism, cultural history, and travel writing, underpinned by a passion for social justice," "Exterminate All the Brutes" is a powerful reckoning with the past and an indispensable contribution to the literature of colonial Africa and European genocide.

by "Nielsen BookData"

Details

  • NCID
    BA27465701
  • ISBN
    • 156584002X
    • 9781565843592
  • LCCN
    95035345
  • Country Code
    us
  • Title Language Code
    eng
  • Text Language Code
    eng
  • Original Language Code
    swe
  • Place of Publication
    New York
  • Pages/Volumes
    x, 179 p.
  • Size
    22 cm
  • Classification
  • Subject Headings
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