Words Cannot Be Found: German Colonial Rule in Namibia: An Annotated Reprint of the 1918 Blue Book (Sources for African History, #1)

by Jeremy Silvester and Jan-Bart Gewald

0 ratings • 0 reviews • 0 shelved
Book cover for Words Cannot Be Found

Bookhype may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. Full disclosure.

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 the first 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 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 particular usefulness of the book lies in the fact that it gives voice to African testimony regarding the first genocide of the Twentieth Century.
  • ISBN10 9004129812
  • ISBN13 9789004129818
  • Publish Date 28 May 2003
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country NL
  • Imprint Brill