In a powerful and insightful pre-launch event, UNAM Press recently introduced its forthcoming publication, The Bushman Myth Revisited: Genocide, Dispossession and the Road to Servitude, authored by Robert J. Gordon, a UNAM Press author and an Emeritus Professor at the University of Vermont, USA.
This new edition marks a return to and a rethinking of Gordon’s earlier work, originally published in 1992 and revised in 2000. Now extensively updated, this third edition probes deeper into the ongoing historical trauma experienced by the Bushman (San) communities in Namibia. It situates their experiences within broader global conversations on settler colonialism and genocide.
The book’s blurb gives a glance into what to expect, it reads “very few histories are so terrifying to record as the elimination of a whole social group and the humiliation of its survivors, particularly if the victims are members of humanity’s ancestral cultures.” He added that, this updated version of the book introduces fresh perspectives through the lenses of settler colonialism and genocide, both transnational phenomena that place Namibia’s case in a global frame.
Ms. Naitsikile Iizyenda, UNAM Press Publisher, captured the spirit of the event and the work it honoured. “I believe this is a book that represents the best of what we stand for, scholarship that challenges conventional narratives, raises urgent questions, and insists on intellectual honesty, no matter how uncomfortable the truth may be,” she stated.
She further described the manuscript as not just academically accurate, but deeply human and unflinchingly honest. “This is not a book that soothes; it confronts. It challenges inherited myths and examines how these narratives continue to shape land, identity, and law in Namibia today”.
Connecting historical injustices and contemporary socio-political realities
Professor Gordon discussed how the updated edition introduces new materials and perspectives, drawing connections between historical injustices and contemporary socio-political realities in Namibia.
“This work stands as a testament to what scholarship can achieve when it is courageous enough to confront difficult truths, and when it recognises the human cost behind historical facts,” he said.
His speech traced the evolution of his research and the ethical responsibility of documenting a history that many still find uncomfortable. The Bushman Myth Revisited invites both local and international audiences to re-examine colonial legacy and its enduring impact.
UNAM Press is dedicated to publishing works that provoke, educate, illuminate, and challenge. In addition to doing all four, The Bushman Myth Revisited manages to remind us that history and truth are both tangled up. Perhaps that is the aim, as the language of colonial power and the silences that permit atrocities to be ignored are uncovered when the “myth” is revisited.
For more details about The Bushman Myth Revisited, including price and availability of the book, please contact UNAM Press at +264 61 206 4714 or unampress@unam.na.
