Martin Kalb Knihy

Focusing on the environmental challenges faced by German colonists in Southwest Africa, the book explores their futile attempts to transform arid landscapes into profitable settlements. It delves into the interplay between natural forces and the violent realities of colonization, revealing the often-overlooked impact of the environment on colonial ambitions. By deconstructing the typical settler narrative, Martin Kalb presents a nuanced understanding of the colony's development leading up to World War I, highlighting the profound consequences for indigenous populations.

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.

In the years following World War II, Munich society became obsessed with the hypothetical threat that youths posed to postwar stability. This fascinating study shows that constructs like the rowdy young male and the sexually deviant girl served as proxies for the anxieties of adult society, while allowing authorities to expand social control.