100 books like "Exterminate All the Brutes"

By Sven Lindqvist, Joan Tate (translator),

Here are 100 books that "Exterminate All the Brutes" fans have personally recommended if you like "Exterminate All the Brutes". Shepherd is a community of 10,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of On Call: Political Essays

Arlene Voski Avakian Author Of Lion Woman's Legacy: An Armenian-American Memoir

From my list on social consciousness in historical contexts.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was an angry girl, railing against the difference between the expectations and restrictions on me and my younger brother. I was also the child of survivors and victims of the Armenian genocide, and I grew up in 1950 when my immigrant family didn’t fit the representations of “Americans” as they were then depicted. And I was white. I wanted to change myself, the world and learn why there was so much injustice in the U.S. I went back to school at UMass, got connected to faculty in the Afro-American Studies Department, and joined the group that was creating the Women’s Studies Program. I am still learning and trying to change the world.  

Arlene's book list on social consciousness in historical contexts

Arlene Voski Avakian Why did Arlene love this book?

A poet, playwright, essayist, teacher, and activist, Jordan had more than 25 published works, including seven books of essays. 

As a feminist and women’s studies teacher and scholar who was focused on bringing race into the center of my activism and analysis, I learned so much from June Jordan. 
On Call, includes essays that explored intersectionality years before Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term and theorized the overlapping social constructions of race, class, and gender. 

The topics of the 18 essays are wide-ranging, from patriarchy, to Black English, to the enslaved 18th-century poet Phillis Wheatley, and a hilarious short essay on the election of Ronald Reagan written in Black English.  I taught “Report from the Bahamas” in almost all of my courses. 

Like all of her essays, it is written with a poet’s sensibility. Every word matters.  

By June Jordan,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked On Call as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Book of political essays by a great Feminist.


Book cover of The Wall Between

Arlene Voski Avakian Author Of Lion Woman's Legacy: An Armenian-American Memoir

From my list on social consciousness in historical contexts.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was an angry girl, railing against the difference between the expectations and restrictions on me and my younger brother. I was also the child of survivors and victims of the Armenian genocide, and I grew up in 1950 when my immigrant family didn’t fit the representations of “Americans” as they were then depicted. And I was white. I wanted to change myself, the world and learn why there was so much injustice in the U.S. I went back to school at UMass, got connected to faculty in the Afro-American Studies Department, and joined the group that was creating the Women’s Studies Program. I am still learning and trying to change the world.  

Arlene's book list on social consciousness in historical contexts

Arlene Voski Avakian Why did Arlene love this book?

I met Anne Braden at an anti-racism conference in the 80s. 

When I heard this older white woman with a thick Southern accent began to speak about the Civil Rights Movement as the second American revolution, I began to cry. 

I was feeling very alone as a white woman in Women’s Studies trying to bring race to the center of the discipline as well as my activism. I was both relieved to know that Braden existed and pained that I had never heard of her.

The book is a memoir of what happened to Anne and her husband Carl when they agreed to Andrew Wade’s request to buy a house and sell it to him, not as a political act but because he and his wife wanted a house in a new development that was segregated and the Wades were Black. 

The Bradens were indicted by the state of Kentucky…

By Anne Braden,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Wall Between as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"The Wall Between is a chilling depiction of a pattern repeated over and over again across the South as brave Blacks and whites tried to breach the barrier between the races. . . . We need to know Anne Braden's story, perhaps even more in 1999 than when she wrote it in 1957." -from the foreword by Julian Bond

In 1954, Anne and Carl Braden bought a house in an all-white neighborhood in Louisville, Kentucky, on behalf of a black couple, Andrew and Charlotte Wade. The Wall Between is Anne Braden's account of what resulted from this act of friendship:…


Book cover of White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide

Arlene Voski Avakian Author Of Lion Woman's Legacy: An Armenian-American Memoir

From my list on social consciousness in historical contexts.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was an angry girl, railing against the difference between the expectations and restrictions on me and my younger brother. I was also the child of survivors and victims of the Armenian genocide, and I grew up in 1950 when my immigrant family didn’t fit the representations of “Americans” as they were then depicted. And I was white. I wanted to change myself, the world and learn why there was so much injustice in the U.S. I went back to school at UMass, got connected to faculty in the Afro-American Studies Department, and joined the group that was creating the Women’s Studies Program. I am still learning and trying to change the world.  

Arlene's book list on social consciousness in historical contexts

Arlene Voski Avakian Why did Arlene love this book?

Anderson’s book is based on prodigious research, but is written for a general audience. 

She argues that when Black people make any gains, whites respond by working, mostly successfully, to deny those advances through local, state, and federal legislation and violence. 

The book begins by documenting the thorough destruction of the rights Black people gained through the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments and brings her analysis forward to the present. This book gives you the historical background to understand what is happening now.

After reading it you will no longer be surprised by what the right wing has been doing since the gains of the civil rights movement to undo those rights won through struggle and incredible courage, the rights every American deserves. 

By Carol Anderson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked White Rage as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

National Book Critics Circle Award Winner
New York Times Bestseller
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of the Year
A Boston Globe Best Book of 2016
A Chicago Review of Books Best Nonfiction Book of 2016

From the Civil War to our combustible present, White Rage reframes our continuing conversation about race, chronicling the powerful forces opposed to black progress in America--now in paperback with a new afterword by the author, acclaimed historian Carol Anderson.

As Ferguson, Missouri, erupted in August 2014, and media commentators across the ideological spectrum referred to…


Book cover of Haunting Legacies: Violent Histories and Transgenerational Trauma

Arlene Voski Avakian Author Of Lion Woman's Legacy: An Armenian-American Memoir

From my list on social consciousness in historical contexts.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was an angry girl, railing against the difference between the expectations and restrictions on me and my younger brother. I was also the child of survivors and victims of the Armenian genocide, and I grew up in 1950 when my immigrant family didn’t fit the representations of “Americans” as they were then depicted. And I was white. I wanted to change myself, the world and learn why there was so much injustice in the U.S. I went back to school at UMass, got connected to faculty in the Afro-American Studies Department, and joined the group that was creating the Women’s Studies Program. I am still learning and trying to change the world.  

Arlene's book list on social consciousness in historical contexts

Arlene Voski Avakian Why did Arlene love this book?

This book is hard to read, but its rewards are great. 

I was literally shaking when reading it because it described my life as a child of survivors and victims of the Armenian genocide in a way that I had not experienced before, illuminating new aspects of the genocide story I have been excavating for most of my adult life.  

Focusing on mass murder, colonialism, South African Apartheid, and U.S. slavery and white supremacy, Schwab addresses the trauma of the generation experiencing these atrocities as well as the way it is passed through to their progeny. 

She also explores the damage done to the perpetrators of violence into her analysis, weaving her own experience as a German growing up in the wake of WW II and the holocaust and as a white person living in the U.S. Schwab also goes beyond exploring trauma to address the necessity of perpetrators’ taking…

By Gabriele Schwab,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Haunting Legacies as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From mass murder to genocide, slavery to colonial suppression, acts of atrocity have lives that extend far beyond the horrific moment. They engender trauma that echoes for generations, in the experiences of those on both sides of the act. Gabriele Schwab reads these legacies in a number of narratives, primarily through the writing of postwar Germans and the descendents of Holocaust survivors. She connects their work to earlier histories of slavery and colonialism and to more recent events, such as South African Apartheid, the practice of torture after 9/11, and the "disappearances" that occurred during South American dictatorships. Schwab's texts…


Book cover of Th Scramble for Africa: The White Man's Conquest of the African Continent from 1876 to 1912

Roy Aronson Author Of The Curse of the Ancestors, with Jamie James

From my list on animals, mysticism, and the wild heart of Africa.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a veterinarian who has worked extensively with African Wildlife in the heart of the African bush. I have also met African Sangoma’s, witch doctors. I have made a study of African mysticism and Ancestral communications and have participated in African mystic rituals, including the cleansing ritual called smudging or burning of herbs and utilizing the smoke for spiritual cleansing. In my books, I fuse my knowledge of African wildlife, African customs and rituals, and my innate ability to tell a good story and have brought forth the Jamie James series. They are quintessential African Adventures taking place in the heart of the African bush.

Roy's book list on animals, mysticism, and the wild heart of Africa

Roy Aronson Why did Roy love this book?

The Scramble for Africa: The White Man's Conquest of the African Continent from 1876 to 1912 is a comprehensive history of the colonization of African territory by European powers between 1876 to 1912 known as the Scramble for Africa.

I am an African. I was born and raised in Africa. When I read about the horrors of the colonization of the continent I live on, I simply could not believe what I was reading. It took a lot more reading and research before I fully understood the implications and impact of this colonization. This led me to understand the place of wildlife in the early history of colonization and the evolution of a wildlife ethic.

Colonial powers viewed Africa as their sole domain for domination of its people and exploitation of its resources for the benefit of the colonial power and no benefit at all to the colony. Humans and…

By Thomas Pakenham,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Th Scramble for Africa as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The extraordinary race for African territory that began in the 1880's and swept the political masters of Europe off their feet.


Book cover of Africa as a Living Laboratory: Empire, Development, and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge, 1870-1950

Gufu Oba Author Of African Environmental Crisis: A History of Science for Development

From my list on environmental history, science, and development.

Why am I passionate about this?

Gufu Oba (Professor) has taught Ecology, Pastoralism, and Environmental History at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences for 21 years. He previously worked for UNESCO-MAB on issues of environmental conservation. He has published four books on social and environmental history. His books include Nomads in the shadows of Empires (BRILL, 2013), Climate change adaptations in Africa (Routledge, 2014), Herder Warfare in East Africa: A social and Spatial History (White Horse Press, 2017), and African Environmental Crisis: A History of Science for development (Routledge, 2020).

Gufu's book list on environmental history, science, and development

Gufu Oba Why did Gufu love this book?

Africa as a Living Laboratory is a far-reaching study of the thorny relationship between imperialism and the role of scientific expertise—environmental, medical, racial, and anthropological—in the colonization of British Africa. A key source for Helen Tilley’s analysis is the African Research Survey, a project undertaken in the 1930s to explore how modern science was being applied to African problems. This project both embraced and recommended an interdisciplinary approach to research on Africa that, Tilley argues, underscored the heterogeneity of African environments and the interrelations among the problems being studied. While the aim of British colonialists was unquestionably to transform and modernize Africa, their efforts, Tilley contends, were often unexpectedly subverted by scientific concerns with the local and vernacular to the understanding of imperial history, colonial development, and the role science played in both.

By Helen Tilley,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Africa as a Living Laboratory as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Tropical Africa was one of the last regions of the world to experience formal European colonialism, a process that coincided with the advent of a range of new scientific specialties and research methods. "Africa as a Living Laboratory" is an ambitious study of the thorny relationship between imperialism and the role of scientific expertise - environmental, medical, racial, and anthropological - in the colonization of British Africa. A key source for Helen Tilley's analysis is the African Research Survey, a project undertaken in the 1930s to explore how modern science was being applied to African problems. This project both embraced…


Book cover of Heart of Darkness

Benjamin Hoffmann Author Of Sentinel Island

From my list on forbidden territories.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a professor of French Literature and Creative Writing at The Ohio State University. A Franco-American writer, I am the author of books and essays published in both France and the United States, including Posthumous America, The Paradoxes of Posterity, American Pandemonium, and Sentinel Island. My work encompasses various genres (novel, short story, essay, and critical study) to explore recurring themes: exile and the representation of otherness; disinformation and the social impact of new technologies; nostalgia and the experience of mourning; the legacy of the Enlightenment and the Age of Great Discoveries; and America’s history and its troubled present.

Benjamin's book list on forbidden territories

Benjamin Hoffmann Why did Benjamin love this book?

Joseph Conrad's book stands as a seminal work exploring the depths of forbidden territories, both physical and psychological.

Set in the mysterious and impenetrable heart of the Congo, Conrad delves into the darkness of the human soul amidst the backdrop of colonialism. Through vivid imagery and haunting prose, he navigates the moral ambiguity of imperialism and the forbidden realms of the unknown. 

By Joseph Conrad,

Why should I read it?

12 authors picked Heart of Darkness as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Although Polish by birth, Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) is regarded as one of the greatest writers in English, and Heart of Darkness, first published in 1902, is considered by many his "most famous, finest, and most enigmatic story." — Encyclopaedia Britannica. The tale concerns the journey of the narrator (Marlow) up the Congo River on behalf of a Belgian trading company. Far upriver, he encounters the mysterious Kurtz, an ivory trader who exercises an almost godlike sway over the inhabitants of the region. Both repelled and fascinated by the man, Marlow is brought face to face with the corruption and despair…


Book cover of Blood and Diamonds: Germany's Imperial Ambitions in Africa

Helmut Walser Smith Author Of Germany: A Nation in Its Time: Before, During, and After Nationalism, 1500-2000

From my list on Imperial Germany before World War I.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a historian of modern Germany at Vanderbilt University and have followed this field for more than thirty years. After a bit of respite, interest in Imperial Germany is suddenly chic again, as 2021 Germany looks back on the past 150 years of its unification in 1871. These five books, all published since 2000, are major recent contributions to the history of Imperial Germany’s prewar period; they also raise questions about the extent to which this conflict-ridden era represents a distant if imperfect mirror for our own contentious times.

Helmut's book list on Imperial Germany before World War I

Helmut Walser Smith Why did Helmut love this book?

A brand-new gripping, revealing history of German colonialism, focused on the brutal diamond trade in Southwest Africa on the eve of World War I. With pellucid prose, Press tells how the Germans cordoned off a so-called “forbidden zone,” behind which rapacious explorers, colonial authorities, miners, and businessmen carted off these precious, if largely useless rocks, for which there was a huge, artificially created demand, especially in the United States.

By Steven Press,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Blood and Diamonds as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Diamonds have long been bloody. A new history shows how Germany's ruthless African empire brought diamond rings to retail display cases in America-at the cost of African lives.

Since the late 1990s, activists have campaigned to remove "conflict diamonds" from jewelry shops and department stores. But if the problem of conflict diamonds-gems extracted from war zones-has only recently generated attention, it is not a new one. Nor are conflict diamonds an exception in an otherwise honest industry. The modern diamond business, Steven Press shows, owes its origins to imperial wars and has never escaped its legacy of exploitation.

In Blood…


Book cover of The Wretched of the Earth

Graeme Gill Author Of Revolution and Terror

From my list on understand why, as Mao said, “revolution is not a dinner party”.

Why am I passionate about this?

I became passionate about this subject when I was at university and I realised that so many revolutions that were conducted in the name of high ideals ended up involving considerable suffering and death on the part of the ordinary people. And not just the ordinary people, but the revolutionaries as well. Why, I wondered, was this the case, and did it mean, as many in the 1960s and 1970s argued, that revolution was ultimately self-defeating? The quest to answer these questions remains on-going, but the books I have suggested have helped me to make some headway towards a resolution.

Graeme's book list on understand why, as Mao said, “revolution is not a dinner party”

Graeme Gill Why did Graeme love this book?

This book is a classic of the anti-colonial struggles of the middle of the twentieth century and was important for many of the revolutionaries of that time. It is written with passion and verve and carried me along on the revolutionary adventure.

It reflects a burning commitment to socialist revolutionary change, which stands in stark contrast to much contemporary politics and roots this in an argument about the psychological implications of imperialism. A stimulating discussion, and one which still generates much argument and dispute.

By Frantz Fanon, Richard Philcox (translator),

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked The Wretched of the Earth as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

First published in 1961, Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth is a masterful and timeless interrogation of race, colonialism, psychological trauma, and revolutionary struggle. In 2020, it found a new readership in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests and the centering of narratives interrogating race by Black writers. Bearing singular insight into the rage and frustration of colonized peoples, and the role of violence in spurring historical change, the book incisively attacks the twin perils of post-independence colonial politics: the disenfranchisement of the masses by the elites on the one hand, and intertribal and interfaith animosities on…


Book cover of The Blood of the Colony: Wine and the Rise and Fall of French Algeria

Rod Phillips Author Of French Wine: A History

From my list on the history of wine.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been passionate about wine since I was a teenager in New Zealand and I now teach and write about it, judge in wine competitions, and travel the world to visit wine regions. I teach European history and the history of food and drink at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. As a wine historian, I spend weeks each year in archives, studying everything from changes in vineyard area and the weather in specific years to the taxation of wine and patterns of wine drinking. Currently, I’m working in several French archives for a book on wine in the French Revolution. It will be my ninth wine book.

Rod's book list on the history of wine

Rod Phillips Why did Rod love this book?

Owen White’s excellent book has given Algerian wine the place it deserves in the wine history of both Algeria and France. Wine production, introduced to Algeria by French settlers in the late 1800s, was an anomaly because the majority Muslim population of the colony did not drink. But it became essential to the French wine industry because it was commonly blended with the then-anemic wines of southern France to make wines with colour and strength. Even so, many French wine producers regarded Algeria as a rival and there was a constant tension between producers who needed Algerian wine and those who resented it. It was resolved when Algeria won independence from France and the wine industry there went into steep decline. 

By Owen White,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Blood of the Colony as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The surprising story of the wine industry's role in the rise of French Algeria and the fall of empire.

"We owe to wine a blessing far more precious than gold: the peopling of Algeria with Frenchmen," stated agriculturist Pierre Berthault in the early 1930s. In the last decades of the nineteenth century, Europeans had displaced Algerians from the colony's best agricultural land and planted grapevines. Soon enough, wine was the primary export of a region whose mostly Muslim inhabitants didn't drink alcohol.

Settlers made fortunes while drawing large numbers of Algerians into salaried work for the first time. But the…


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