1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910798840603321

Autore

Kalb Martin

Titolo

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

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berghahn Books, 2022

New York, NY : , : Berghahn Books, Incorporated, , 2022

©2022

ISBN

9781800732896

1800732899

9781800734579

1800734573

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (322 pages)

Collana

Environment in History: International Perspectives ; ; v.23

Disciplina

968.8102

Soggetti

Environmental management - Namibia - History

Nature and civilization - Namibia

Technological innovations - Environmental aspects - Namibia

HISTORY / Africa / West

Namibia History 1884-1915

Namibia Colonization Environmental aspects

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.