Rating: 
Summary: Disturbing and provocative
Review: Sven Lindqvist has created here a fascinating, disturbing collage of history, journalism, and memoir -- a sometimes surreal exploration of the European impulse toward genocide.Lindqvist develops a few theses, but his primary one is that imperialism leads to genocidal actions, and that no slaughter is completely unique when viewed in the context of history. He writes, "Auschwitz was the modern industrial application of a policy of extermination on which European world domination had long since rested." This is an invaluable book for anyone looking for perspective on Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" or 19th century European attitudes toward race and colonialism. It gives a damning picture not only of European actions in Africa, but of the educated European public's indifference to inhumanity. The writing is extremely clear and readable, compulsively so, because Lindqvist's technique is to offer tantalizing strands of ideas, all seemingly unrelated, and then slowly and shockingly bring them together as a whole. The organization and balance of the book's many pieces is magnificent. There are no clear answers here. Lindqvist digs up a history most people would rather let lie. Its implications about humanity, all of humanity, are dark. But without facing them, we will never cease being accomplices to slaughter.
Rating:
Summary: Every high school student should read this book.
Review: This is the best expose of colonialism that I've ever read. The central thread is the author's musings on "Heart of Darkness" while travelling across Africa by bus, but he brings in everything from Adam Smith to Darwin to Adolf Hitler. The style is lyrical, almost poetic -- interspersed among the history are the author's nightmares, which increase in frequency as he gets closer to the end of the century. After this you'll never be able to read Rudyard Kipling the same way again.
Rating:
Summary: A surreal examination of violence and its justification
Review: I read this book in the winter of 2002-03, as the drive to war against Iraq was at a frenzied pitch. A few months later, on the day of the final ultimatum to Saddam, just before the bombing began, I was at my sister's house visiting. From the next room my nephew lets out a loud sigh, saying "I have to wait two more hours!" I thought he was referring to some show, but he was actually referring to the President's deadline to launch hostilities. So now, in America, war has become almost a staged form of entertainment which we can enjoy with our children from the comfort of our homes. I mention this because Exterminate All the Brutes has, for me at least, many moments which touch upon the surreal thought processes which help to justify the unjustifiable. It's easy to look back at dead empires and point out their evil deeds; less settling is the knowledge that, regardless of our many technological advancements and extreme wealth, we are of a civilization (one among many) that commits and condones extreme violence against the innocent, as long as it furthers the goals of those in power who profit from it. And we the people, like willing sheep, blindly accept the lies. This book makes us look deeper at the falsehoods, with the plea that when we next hear our leadership misguiding us, we can think for ourselves and reject the guilded call to war and slaughter.
Rating:
Summary: The Horror
Review: This short book doesn't attempt to say it all about genocide, racism, imperialism or the current state of Africa - but once you've read it, all those subjects will make a lot more sense. It's beautifully written. In part it is a travel journal recounting Lindqvist's own slow journey across the Sahara. This is the least developed piece of the narrative, but it gives light relief to the other material. More substantial is Lindqvist's deconstruction of Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," the iconic European novel of Africa. With a light touch, Lindqvist sets Conrad's writings in the context of Europe's developing ideas of Africa in the 1890s, as a glorious playing field, a treasure-house to be looted, a distant extension of the intrigues of the European capitals. At its heart, Lindqvist's extended essay is a history of Europe's colonial instinct for genocide. He argues that Hitler's Holocaust was not an aberration in European history, but rather a logical extension of the policies used by the British in Sudan, the Belgians in the Congo, the French in Mali, and so on. Hitler's only difference was that he sought colonial expansion within the boundaries of Europe (a crime against humanity), rather than overseas (the spread of civilisation). Lindqvist charts how European imperialists seized on the emerging theories of Charles Darwin to justify genocide on pseudo-scientific grounds. And also how Germany, not initially among the imperialists, spawned the most articulate opponents of colonialism. Later, when Bismarck set out to get an empire of Germany's own, funded by Germany's rising industrial might, the prevailing scientific philosophy in Germany became increasingly racist - setting the ground for Hitler. People argue that since Lindqvist published this book, monstrous slaughters in Cambodia and Rwanda have destroyed his thesis. Not so. It is not hard to argue that both Cambodia and Rwanda's genocides were a reaction, at least in part, to European or American policies. Even if you choose not to accept that argument, there can be no denying that Lindqvist's fundamental thesis remains. Europeans in Africa (and elsewhere, including Australia) brought with them the civilisation of racism and the gun. All else is unimportant.
Rating:
Summary: An eye opening book
Review: This book is beautifully written, perfectly put together to move the reader to realize our true history in this world. It makes connections with imperialism and the holocaust that have never been presented before. It is an absolute must read for anyone who is looking for answers of why the 20th century was the way it was. I could not put it down.
Rating:
Summary: A surreal examination of violence and its justification
Review: I read this book in the winter of 2002-03, as the drive to war against Iraq was at a frenzied pitch. A few months later, on the day of the final ultimatum to Saddam, just before the bombing began, I was at my sister's house visiting. From the next room my nephew lets out a loud sigh, saying "I have to wait two more hours!" I thought he was referring to some show, but he was actually referring to the President's deadline to launch hostilities. So now, in America, war has become almost a staged form of entertainment which we can enjoy with our children from the comfort of our homes. I mention this because Exterminate All the Brutes has, for me at least, many moments which touch upon the surreal thought processes which help to justify the unjustifiable. It's easy to look back at dead empires and point out their evil deeds; less settling is the knowledge that, regardless of our many technological advancements and extreme wealth, we are of a civilization (one among many) that commits and condones extreme violence against the innocent, as long as it furthers the goals of those in power who profit from it. And we the people, like willing sheep, blindly accept the lies. This book makes us look deeper at the falsehoods, with the plea that when we next hear our leadership misguiding us, we can think for ourselves and reject the guilded call to war and slaughter.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but not essential
Review: I read this book as an undergrad, and was moved by it. I wasn't moved so much by the analysis of genocide, which I found pretty ordinary (but useful), but by his method of drawing on literary texts from the turn of the century, and his analysis of them. After reading this text, I went out and devoured Joseph Conrad's works, and I have never looked at H.G. Wells' work again in the same way. If you are interested in this literary period, or in linking these fiction works with the thought of European genocide, then get the book. If you are only interested in the roots of genocide, then check it out in the library before you buy it, to see if it will suit your purposes.
Rating:
Summary: Horrifying But True
Review: Here's a unique look at the Western world's impact on Africa during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Its told in a sort of travelogue as the author travels through the Sahara. On the way he muses over Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", in which a European issues orders to solve the African native problem by "exterminating the brutes" The details of atrocities committed against indigenous populations in the Congo and elsewhere are horrific. The format leaves something to be desired as at times you're not sure whether you're in the present or back in the past, but perhaps that's what the author intended. Keep "Exterminate All the Brutes" in mind the next time you hear someone talking about bringing civilization to the savages.
Rating:
Summary: Great read
Review: This book reminded me alot of Foucault's Madness and Civilization. I haven't read Foucault's book in years and I can't say why I thought this, bizarre. I felt that both authors cherry picked alot of "colorful" information to exagerate their opinions on their subjects. Both books are full of fascinating stories and sweeping generalizations but it is the humanity of the authors narrative that compels you along. Read it. I highly recommend the authors other book "A history of bombing" as well.
Rating:
Summary: One of the most disturbing books I have read in some time. .
Review: My students find this an extraordinarily good entry point to the study of fascism and imperialism, irrationalism and hubris. Tracing the path of Heart of Darkness, the author implicity suggests a better reading of that book than has been offered by many recent postmodernists, giving the students yet another doorway into the question : just where is the heart of darkness located?
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