The Devil's Handwriting: Precoloniality And the German Colonial State in Qingdao, Samoa, And Southwest Africa - Brossura

Steinmetz, George

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0226772438 ISBN 13: 9780226772431

Casa editrice: Univ of Chicago Pr, 2007

Riassunto

Germany’s overseas colonial empire was relatively short lived, lasting from 1884 to 1918. During this period, dramatically different policies were enacted in the colonies: in Southwest Africa, German troops carried out a brutal slaughter of the Herero people; in Samoa, authorities pursued a paternalistic defense of native culture; in Qingdao, China, policy veered between harsh racism and cultural exchange.
Why did the same colonizing power act in such differing ways? In The Devil’s Handwriting, George Steinmetz tackles this question through a brilliant cross-cultural analysis of German colonialism, leading to a new conceptualization of the colonial state and postcolonial theory. Steinmetz uncovers the roots of colonial behavior in precolonial European ethnographies, where the Hereros were portrayed as cruel and inhuman, the Samoans were idealized as “noble savages,” and depictions of Chinese culture were mixed. The effects of status competition among colonial officials, colonizers’ identification with their subjects, and the different strategies of cooperation and resistance offered by the colonized are also scrutinized in this deeply nuanced and ambitious comparative history.

Su questo libro

L'autore:

George Steinmetz is professor of sociology and German studies at the University of Michigan. He is the author ofRegulating the Social: The Welfare State and Local Politics in Imperial Germany, the editor ofState/Culture: State Formation after the Colonial Turn and The Politics of Method in the Human Sciences: Positivism and its Epistemological Others, and codirector, with Michael Chanan, of the documentary filmDetroit: Ruin of a City.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Univ of Chicago Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0226772438
• ISBN 13: 9780226772431
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 640