Shaping the African Savannah: From Capitalist Frontier to Arid Eden in Namibia (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781108488488)

The southern African savannah landscape has been framed as an 'Arid Eden' in recent literature, as one of Africa's most sought after exotic tourism destinations by twenty-first century travellers, as a 'last frontier' by early twentieth-century travellers and as an ancient ancestral land by Namibia's Herero communities. In this 150-year history of the region, Michael Bollig looks at how this 'Arid Eden' came into being, how this 'last frontier' was construed, and how local pastoralists relate to the landscape. Putting the intricate and changing relations between humans, arid savannah grasslands and its co-evolving animal inhabitants at the centre of his analysis, this history of material relations, of power struggles between commercial hunters and wildlife, between wealthy cattle patrons and foraging clients, between established homesteads and recent migrants, conservationists and pastoralists. Finally, Bollig highlights how futures are being aspired to and planned for between the increasing challenges of climate change, global demands for cheap ores and quests for biodiversity conservation.

Author: Michael Bollig
ISBN-10: 110848848X
ISBN-13: 9781108488488
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 07/02/2020
Pages: 336
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.62lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.94d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 10/01/2021