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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.
“…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
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.
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
Bibliography
Index