"Exterminate All the Brutes"

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. The author attempts to help readers to understand Joseph Conrad's disturbing line, "Exterminate all the brutes".

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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".