HIDDEN HISTORIES OF GORDONIA, land dispossession and resistance in the Northern Cape, 1800-1990

409pp., illus., maps, paperback, Johannesburg, 2016

Martin Legassick explores the 'brown' and 'black' history of the Northern Cape Province by presenting accounts of family histories, episodes of indigenous resistance to colonisation, and studies of the imposition of racial segregation and land dispossession.

"This is a magnum opus, summing up a quarter century of resaearch by one of the most senior and important of South African historians" Neil Parsons, former Professor of History, University of Botswana

"There are few areas in South Africa that are like Gordonia. It is to Legassick's great credit that he recognised this, but nevertheless makes  the history of the country's major area of desert part of South Africa's totality. It is a major achievement and an important book." Robert Ross, author of The Borders of Race in Colonial South Africa: the Kat River settlement, 1829-1856

Martin Legassick (1940-2016) was Emeritus Professor of History at the University of the Western Cape. His other books include The Struggle for the Eastern Cape: 1800-1854: subjugation and the roots of South African democracy and The Politics of a South African frontier: the Griqua, the Sotho-Tswana and the missionaries, 1789-1840.