Author(s): Sven Lindqvist

History | Africa | Ethnicity, Race and Identity

Exterminate All the Brutes is a unique study of Europe's dark history in Africa, written both in the form of a travel diary and as 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 people 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.

"A book of stunning range and near genius. . . . The catastrophic consequences of European imperialism are made palpable in the personal progress of the author, a late-twentieth century pilgrim in Africa. Lindqvist's astonishing connections across time and cultures, combined with a marvelous economy of prose, leave the reader appalled, reflective, and grateful."
-David Levering Lewis

"In 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."
-The Washington Post

"Lindqvist's disturbing, brilliant work of historical sleuthing deserves to be taken up in a thousand classrooms."
-Rob Nixon, Voice Literary Supplement

Author Biography: Sven Lindqvist has published thirty books, including The Skull Measurer's Mistake, A History of Bombing, and Terra Nullius (all available from The New Press). He holds a PhD in the history of literature from Stockholm University, an honorary doctorate from Uppsala University, and an honorary professorship from the Swedish government. He lives in Stockholm. Joan Tate (1992 2000) translated more than two hundred books, including works by Ingmar Bergman, Kerstin Ekman, and Astrid Lindgren.

Author Biography: Sven Lindqvist was born in Stockholm in 1932 and has travelled extensively through Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Promotional Information: An impassioned and perception-altering classic, which blends travelogue and deep historical investigation to reveal the true horror of Europe's racist colonial past in Africa.