Overview

Even leaving aside the vast death and suffering that it wrought on indigenous populations, German ambitions to transform Southwest Africa in the early part of the twentieth century were futile for most. For years colonists wrestled ocean waters, desert landscapes, and widespread aridity as they tried to reach inland in their effort of turning outwardly barren lands into a profitable settler colony. In his innovative environmental history, Martin Kalb outlines the development of the colony up to World War I, deconstructing the common settler narrative, all to reveal the importance of natural forces and the Kaisereich’s everyday violence.

Full Product Details

Author:   Martin Kalb
Publisher:   Berghahn Books
Imprint:   Berghahn Books
ISBN:  

9781805393047

ISBN 10:   1805393049
Pages:   322
Publication Date:   01 March 2024
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Figures Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1. Currents, Chances, Commodities     On the Margins     Boiling Giants     Clubbing the Wing-footed     Shoveling White Gold Chapter 2. Accessing an Arid Land     Our Place in the Desert     Reaching Southwest Africa     Germany’s Own Entrance Chapter 3. Harbors, Animals, Trains     Technological Marbles     Animal Engineering     Reaching Inland Chapter 4. Solving Aridity     Existing Structures     Water Structures     Engineering Water Chapter 5. Access and Destruction     Supplying War     Maintaining Access     Fighting People and Nature Chapter 6. Expanding War and Death     Drilling Wood     Accessing the South     Reaching Beyond Chapter 7. Creating a Model Colony     Visions of a Model Colony     Solving the Water Question     Creating a Settler Paradise Conclusion Bibliography Index

Reviews

“…a brilliant contribution to the growing corpus of more-than-human histories of Africa. Integrating humans, animals, microorganisms, sea currents, desert sands, rainfall, harbors, railways, and other nonhumans as agentive forces in the history of the German settler colony of Southwest Africa (now Namibia), Kalb makes …major contributions…a master class in writing more-than-human histories of both colonialism and African countries. It deserves the greatest success and the highest praise.” • H Net “In this compelling portrait of how non-human actors—from ocean currents to arid interiors to naval shipworms—thwarted German colonial ambitions, Martin Kalb fills a significant gap in the scholarship about a country and a region of growing international interest to environmentalists and ecotourists.” • Thomas M. Lekan, University of Southern Carolina

Author Information

Martin Kalb is an Associate Professor of History at Bridgewater College in Virginia. His research on the histories of everyday life (Alltagsgeschichte), youth, and environmental history has appeared in academic journals and edited volumes; his monograph Coming of Age: Constructing and Controlling Youth in Munich, 1942–1973 was published in 2016.

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