Exterminate All the Brutes

Filmmaker Raoul Peck sets out to illuminate the intertwined currents of hate and bigotry running through history. Focusing on the United States’ legacy as a colonial power, Peck explores how race first became institutionalized, the Nazi program of “elimination” and its antecedents in the West, and the looting of the African continent in a “gentlemen’s agreement.”

Peck looks back at human migration, trade, and weaponry, and shows how Europeans used industrialized steel to conduct warfare from ever-greater distances. Then, he explores the endless cycle of militarization throughout the centuries – from George Washington’s efforts to jumpstart American arms manufacturing, to the Monroe Doctrine, and finally, to the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.