Sven Lindqvist's "Exterminate All the Brutes": A Journey into the Depths of European Genocide and the History of Oppression

Dr Omar Altalib: What I liked about the book is the description of the Algerian desert towns. Regarding European colonialism, there are interesting tidbits of information but it does need to have a stronger unifying theme

United States on Apr 30, 2023

Amazon Customer: Well educated book all should read

United States on Jan 01, 2023

Poor audience member: A convincing essay about what makes genocide possible and how one genocide can easily lead to another. As a person of Jewish descent, I’m not often comfortable hearing or reading that other genocides may have similarities to The Holocaust, not because those similarities don’t exist (because, of course, they do) but rather that I am always wary of the possibility that any rationale (no matter how well presented) might diminish the severity of that particular genocide. Nevertheless, I found Lindqvist’s essay fair and persuasive. While showing the historical trail that led to The Holocaust, a trail that killed people in other parts of the world as brutally and psychopathically as the Jews in Europe, Lindqvist does seem to eventually suggest something of a distinction between The Holocaust and many other genocides: the probability of a Jew being left alive to act as a slave was less than someone of another ethnicity at that time. Jews were meant to merely die. Therefore, this fact places The Holocaust in the same category as the killing of the Armenians by the Turkish government, the killing of Tutsis by Hutus in Rwanda, and any other mass murder where many members of a...

United States on Jun 28, 2021

KimP: This book was extremely eye opening. Lindqvist discusses history in a manner that’s fair and approachable to everyone. I’ve already ordered two more of his books.

Canada on Jul 12, 2019

apelsinas: the book answered t the description, love it and definately recommend the seller!

United Kingdom on Sep 03, 2015

Francis Glorieux: I knew that book which I consider as one of the major history books of the last 20 years.
I bought it to offer it to a friend

Canada on Apr 13, 2015

Sesquilinear: Four stars because too short. Although going through some of the references at the end of the book would extend the amount of reading considerably. Disturbing because the description of atrocities is heartrending for someone who values life and does not cheer at bombs being dropped through the push of a button on children two continents away by functionaries in plush armchairs. Exterminating all the brutes is online, alive and well, thank you. Disturbing because what is described in the book is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of massacres and atrocities. History recorded comparatively few descriptions of atrocities by a few well-meaning souls. The rest lacked the required courage the author mentions, in particular, at the end of the book. The courage to behold the beam that is in thine own eye. Daring to mention "Genocide" in connection with pre-WWII massacres, although the author writes the appropriate lines to exonerate himself - did he lack courage in the face of overwhelming odds ? Genocide is ingrained in human nature, but the roots of "scientific" and "good" genocide as conducted by European nations in particular, and discussed in the book, run much deeper. The book...

United States on Apr 12, 2013

Ilya Grigorik: Exterminate All the Brutes is brief and disturbing; Sven Lindqvist unveils the realities and moral convictions we have almost completely repressed. Just as the author suggests, the book shatters the image we have of ourselves, but even more importantly, it is distressing how relevant his ideas and Conrad's `Heart of Darkness' are in the world today - again.

The title of the book is taken from Joseph Conrad's 1902 classic novel - Heart of Darkness. In it, the main character, Kurtz, goes to Africa to bring progress and culture to the uncivilized continent. He is dispatched to Africa as an ivory procurement agent, and as the story develops the reader is confronted with the unreal brutality of the colonial rule. Conrad's work intertwines the themes of `light of civilization' and `darkness of barbarism' and makes reader realize the hollowness of these phrases as Kurtz surrounds himself with chaos and mayhem. Sven Lindqvist develops this theme as he traces the imperial history of European colonialism and condenses it to a single sentence: "Exterminate all the brutes." European world expansion, he claims, and the employed tactics of extermination are the truths we like to forget....

United States on Nov 25, 2006