The Nature of German Imperialism: Conservation and the Politics of Wildlife in Colonial East Africa

The Nature of German Imperialism: Conservation and the Politics of Wildlife in Colonial East Africa. Cover.

The Nature of German Imperialism: Conservation and the Politics of Wildlife in Colonial East Africa. Cover.

Berghahn Books, 2016.

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Gissibl, Bernhard. The Nature of German Imperialism: Conservation and the Politics of Wildlife in Colonial East Africa. New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2016.

Today, the East African state of Tanzania is renowned for wildlife preserves such as the Serengeti National Park, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, and the Selous Game Reserve. Yet few know that most of these initiatives emerged from decades of German colonial rule. This book gives the first full account of Tanzanian wildlife conservation up until World War I, focusing upon elephant hunting and the ivory trade as vital factors in a shift from exploitation to preservation that increasingly excluded indigenous Africans. Analyzing the formative interactions between colonial governance and the natural world, The Nature of German Imperialism situates East African wildlife policies within the global emergence of conservationist sensibilities around 1900. (Text from Berghahn Books)

The Rachel Carson Center, the ESEH, and Berghahn Books (New York and Oxford) partner on the publication of the peer-reviewed book series The Environment in History: International Perspectives. The series strives to bridge both national and disciplinary divides, with a particular emphasis on European, transnational, and comparative research.