Environing Empire: Nature, Infrastructure and the Making of German Southwest Africa

by Martin Kalb

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781805393047
Publisher:	Berghahn Books
Publication date:	03/01/2024
Series:	Environment in History: International Perspectives , #23
Pages:	322
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 1.25(h) x 9.00(d)

About the Author

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.

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

Editorial Reviews

“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

From the Publisher