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An Imperial Homeland : Forging German Identity in Southwest Africa
Author
Title
An Imperial Homeland : Forging German Identity in Southwest Africa / Adam A. Blackler.
ISBN
9780271093819
Publication
University Park, Pennsylvania : The Pennsylvania State University Press, [2022]
Manufacture
Baltimore, Md. : Project MUSE, 2023
Copyright Notice Date
©[2022]
Physical Description
1 online resource: illustrations, maps.
Local Notes
Access is available to the Yale community.
Notes
Description based on print version record.
Access and use
Access restricted by licensing agreement.
Summary
At the turn of the twentieth century, depictions of the colonized world were prevalent throughout the German metropole. Tobacco advertisements catered to the erotic gaze of imperial enthusiasts with images of Ovaherero girls, and youth magazines allowed children to escape into "exotic domains" where their imaginations could wander freely. While racist beliefs framed such narratives, the abundance of colonial imaginaries nevertheless compelled German citizens and settlers to contemplate the world beyond Europe as a part of their daily lives.An Imperial Homeland reorients our understanding of the relationship between imperial Germany and its empire in Southwest Africa (present-day Namibia). Colonialism had an especially significant effect on shared interpretations of the Heimat (home/homeland) ideal, a historically elusive perception that conveyed among Germans a sense of place through national peculiarities and local landmarks. Focusing on colonial encounters that took place between 1842 and 1915, Adam A. Blackler reveals how Africans confronted foreign rule and altered German national identity. As Blackler shows, once the façade of imperial fantasy gave way to colonial reality, German metropolitans and white settlers increasingly sought to fortify their presence in Africa using juridical and physical acts of violence, culminating in the first genocide of the twentieth century.Grounded in extensive archival research, An Imperial Homeland enriches our understanding of German identity, allowing us to see how a distant colony with diverse ecologies, peoples, and social dynamics grew into an extension of German memory and tradition. It will be of interest to German Studies scholars, particularly those interested in colonial Africa.
Variant and related titles
Project Muse books annual backfile collection 2023.
Format
Books / Online
Language
English
Added to Catalog
January 17, 2024
Series
The Max Kade Research Institute series : Germans beyond Europe
Contents
Introduction: National fantasies : German identity and the African Heimat
"New worlds of vitality" : colonial aspirations and the German nation, 1848-1884
"Between Heimat and heathens" : religious chauvinism in southwest Africa
"A blessing to itself and the motherland" : extolling empire in the age of imperial conquest
"I have done all I can" : African resistance and the evolution of German colonial violence
"My nearly white wife" : colonial citizenship and the racial boundaries of Germanness
"A little bit of the devil in his body" : imperial masculinity and the ideal German (settler)
Conclusion: After empire : Heimat Südwest and German identity.
Subjects
Genre/Form
History.
Also listed under
Project Muse. distributor
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