Description:
This work analyzes the social and environmental impact of colonial conquest and pacification of Africa through a case study of the Angolan-Namibian borderlands.
This work analyzes the social and environmental impact of colonial conquest and pacification of Africa through a case study of the Angolan-Namibian borderlands. These areas were exposed to three different systems of colonial expansion: German, Portuguese, and British (South African). This study demonstrates the interactions between social and environmental factors, structures and processes and shows that colonial conquest needs to be acknowledged as a major problem.
It includes in-depth analysis of the late 19th to 20th century processes of social and environmental change at the village, household, and individual levels. It illustrates how refugees managed to restore a workable environment without massive outside aid and despite colonial exactions.
Brief description:
Emmanuel Kreike is Assistant Professor of History at Princeton University, where he teaches African, environmental, and world history.
Review Quotes: "Emmanuel Kreike presents a socio-enviromental history of the Ovambo floodplains through this historical case-study of the region of Oukwanyama from the 1880s to 1960. In many ways the book is a history of the evolution of the modern Angolan-Namibian borderlands. It traces large-scale population movements from southern Angola to northern Namibia, and the rapid socioeconomic as well as environmental transformations that occurred in the wake of colonial and mission expansion of Portuguese, German, South African and Finnish origins. An important focus of the book are 'transformation histories' in local memory, of individuals and households."-Journal of African History