1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910720874703321

Autore

Kalb Martin

Titolo

Environing empire : nature, infrastructure, and the making of German Southwest Africa / / Martin Kalb

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York : , : Berghahn Books, , [2022]

©2022

ISBN

1-80073-289-9

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (322 pages) : illustrations

Collana

Environment in history ; ; Volume 23

Disciplina

363.705

Soggetti

Environmental management

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

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.

Sommario/riassunto

"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"--