“Capitalism and German Colonialism, Revisited”
Speaker(s): Steven Press èצӰ
In 1908, Germans discovered the richest diamond field in history. The backdrop for this find was the Namib desert in the Protectorate of Southwest Africa, the very desert through which Germany began its fateful destruction of the Herero and Nama peoples in the 1880s. From the moment of discovery, the Namib diamonds worked to create major international uncertainty. These tiny stones created scandal in the German parliament, struck fear in the boardrooms of London, and transformed the rate and nature of consumption in the world’s largest diamond market: the United States. In addition to their considerable impact on the international economy, the Namib diamonds raised unsettling legal issues for Imperial Germany. Doubts surrounded its overseas colonies: the dubious treaties underpinning their international legal authority; their erratic commitment to development; and their lack of safeguards against abuse of indigenous African laborers. Other doubts related to imperial finances more broadly, including the winding-down of late-nineteenth-century chartered company governments that had irretrievably blurred the lines between private and public spheres. By reference to the diamond story, my talk aims to scrutinize the issue of who profited from the German colonies, and how.
Steven Press is an Assistant Professor of History at èצӰ. He received his B.A. from Vanderbilt University and his Ph.D. from Harvard University. His first book, Rogue Empires: Conmen and Contracts in Europe’s Scramble for Africa, was published in 2017 with Harvard University. It won the 2018 American Historical Association Pacific Coast Branch Book Award. Some of Steven’s previous research on sovereignty and nationalism has appeared as articles in the Journal of Modern History and Central European History.