"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."--Page 4 of cover.