Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

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 provided by Syndetics

• List of Figures (p. ix)
• Acknowledgments (p. xii)
• Introduction (p. 1)
• Chapter 1 Currents, Chances, Commodities (p. 17)
• On the Margins (p. 19)
• Boiling Giants (p. 25)
• Clubbing the Wing-Footed (p. 30)
• Shoveling White Gold (p. 33)
• Chapter 2 Accessing Arid Lands (p. 51)
• Our Place in the Desert (p. 52)
• Reaching Southwest Africa (p. 58)
• Germany's Own Entrance (p. 64)
• Chapter 3 Harbors, Animals, Trains (p. 83)
• Technological Marbles (p. 84)
• Animal Engineering (p. 90)
• Reaching Inland (p. 97)
• Chapter 4 Solving Aridity (p. 119)
• Existing Structures (p. 120)
• Water Structures (p. 129)
• Engineering Water (p. 136)
• Chapter 5 Access and Destruction (p. 155)
• Supplying War (p. 157)
• Maintaining Access (p. 161)
• Fighting Nature and People (p. 169)
• Chapter 6 Expanding War and Death (p. 189)
• Drilling Wood (p. 191)
• Accessing the South (p. 197)
• Reaching Beyond (p. 203)
• Chapter 7 Creating a Model Colony (p. 223)
• Visions of a Model Colony (p. 224)
• Constructing the Future (p. 229)
• Solving the Water Question (p. 234)
• Creating a Settler Paradise (p. 241)
• Conclusion (p. 267)
• Selected Bibliography (p. 279)
• Indexes (p. 297)
• Index of Places (p. 297)
• Index of Persons (p. 300)
• Index of Subjects (p. 304)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Germany's briefly held colonies have received increasing scholarly attention, particularly German Southwest Africa--modern-day Namibia and the largest of Germany's colonies, held from 1884 to 1915. In Environing Empire, Kalb (Bridgewater College) provides an environmental history of the colony, in which the environment itself serves as an agent, complicating and undermining Germany's ambitions. Applying the "environmental infrastructure" lens of Emmanuel Kreike, Kalb argues that the Benguela Current, the hazardous coastline, and the Namib desert dictated how Germans tried to subjugate Southwest Africa and then foiled those attempts, causing shipwrecks, irrigation problems, and destruction of infrastructure. These challenges complicated the narrative of "conquering nature" that was so essential to colonialism. Though giving nature clear agency in the story, Kalb also seeks to show the agency of Africans, whose labor served as the backbone of the German colonial project. Kalb cites familiar narratives, such as memoirs, but he also utilizes archival documents, "previously snubbed materials of technocrats," and oral histories from the Herero and Nama peoples. This book is not intended for undergraduates but is a good resource for scholars. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students and faculty. --Hilary Dorsch Wong, SUNY Cortland

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Martin Kalb is Assistant 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 by Berghahn Books.