Product Description

Taking its title from Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", this study traces Europe's dark history in Africa. It is written both in the form of a travel diary and as a historical examination of European imperialism and rascism over the past two centuries.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #433590 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04-11
• Original language: Swedish
• Binding: Paperback
• 189 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
In a chilling and controversial book, Swedish author Sven Lindqvist recounts the grisly history of 19th-century European imperialism and its connection to a legacy of genocide. Moving crudely through present-day Africa while tracing the routes of British conquerors, Lindqvist tells how armed troops massacred 11,000 Sudanese with only 48 British deaths in 1898 and how the King of Ashanti was made to kiss the feet of British officers in 1896. Lindqvist doesn't stop in Africa, writing of the extermination of the Tasmanian aborigines and other atrocities inflicted on native people. He then connects those acts with those of the Nazi regime, showing how rampant imperialism sowed the seeds of the Holocaust. A moving account of the forces of history.

Review
'This book is important...we, our rulers, and their stooges should read it...it contains a message for our future' Nicholas Lezard, Guardian 'The chilling title of this excellent book is the line from Conrad's Heart of Darkness that concludes Kurtz's report on the task of the white man in Africa' Mail on Sunday 'Here is a book which has come out of risk and years of thought' John Berger

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

Customer Reviews

Coruscating criticism of European racism
This book is a terrifying account of how the Holocaust was a replay in Europe of the hideous, murderous assault on africans by the imperialists of the late nineteenth century. It spares nobody - those who think the Holocaust was the product of a purely German exterminationist racism, neo-imperialists who look back on "Empire" as a golden age, believers in the benevolence of the Christian church and its missionary work in the "dark continent".

One of the most powerful books on racism ever written, and a gem of concision. Buy it and be awed and shocked by the depth of Europe's brutality a century ago, and wonder why it has taken so long for this story to reach us.

This is very healthy reading for everyone
This is a book to make you cry and reform your life. Lindqvist meticulously and mercilessly traces the development of excuses and justification that lead to unspeakable massacres (in the league of the nazi concentration camps or the Battle of Omdurman) - it is about what people slaughtering the underdog in the most soul-destroying manner tell themselves while doing it. By way of style, it is flawless. Lindqvist stays well away from the moral high ground and self-righteousness, and subtly makes us realise that we all harbour the mind-patterns of an executioner.
It is also extremely readable and intersperses a Saharan travelogue through the history of the ideology and science of racism and violence.

A fascinating way to present history
Strictly chronological retellings of history can be a little dull, and reminiscent of the stuffy school classroom. Lindqvist's approach is very different - he mixes up history, theory, travel writing, and his own dreams to create the effect that you are discovering history with him. The conclusions he draws - or rather, invites the reader to draw - are surprising, and should make sobering reading for anyone who mourns the decline of the British (or French, or Spanish) empire. He links the origins of Darwinian theory through to the eugenics of the Third Reich, showing how science can be misused to further misguided and murderous projects. If it has lost any impact in the translation, it isn't missed.