Words Cannot Be Found: German Colonial Rule in Namibia: An Annotated Reprint of the 1918 Blue Book FROM THE PUBLISHER
The 1918 'Blue Book' Report on the Natives of South-West Africa and Their Treatment by Germany, is based on the voluntary statements taken under oath of no less than 50 African witnesses. This testimony was combined with numerous German colonial documents to produce not only a stinging indictment of German colonial policy in German South West Africa, but also a number of detailed eyewitness accounts of the first genocide of the twentieth century. However, within ten years of being printed, orders were issued for the destruction of all copies of the Blue Book within the British Empire. The editors of this volume have investigated how the Blue Book came into being, provided background information to the events and people described, and sought to discover the original German documents upon which so much of the Blue Book material is based. The documentation of African testimonies makes this book particularly useful to all those interested in African and colonial history, human rights and the history of genocide.
SYNOPSIS
The colonization of Namibia resulted in events described as war atrocities and even genocide committed by the German colonizers against the Herero people in 1904. Fourteen years later, in the midst of war with Germany, the British government published a "blue book" report on the 1904 events, which unusually relied on the statements of African eyewitnesses. Republishing the report, Silvester (history, U. of Namibia) and Gewald (African Studies Center, U. of Leiden, the Netherlands) also include an introductory essay discussing the origins of the "blue book," controversies over its accuracy, and subsequent orders to have it expunged from the historical record. Annotation ©2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
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