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

• Superior document: Environment in History: International Perspectives Ser. ; v.23
• Author: Kalb, Martin.
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : Berghahn Books, Incorporated,, 2022.; ©2022.
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Series: Environment in History: International Perspectives Ser.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (322 pages)

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.

Table of Contents

Intro -- Contents -- Figures -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Chapter 1 - Currents, Chances, Commodities -- Chapter 2 - Accessing Arid Lands -- Chapter 3 - Harbors, Animals, Trains -- Chapter 4 - Solving Aridity -- Chapter 5 - Access and Destruction -- Chapter 6 - Expanding War and Death -- Chapter 7 - Creating a Model Colony -- Conclusion -- Selected Bibliography -- Index of Places -- Index of Persons -- Index of Subjects.