"Exterminate All the Brutes"

"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."