Green lands for white men : desert dystopias and the environmental origins of apartheid / Meredith McKittrick.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McKittrick, Meredith, author.

Series:

Science.culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Schwarz, E. H. L. (Ernest Hubert Lewis), 1873-1928.

Schwarz, E. H. L.

Reclamation of land--South Africa--History--20th century.

Reclamation of land.

Reclamation of land--Political aspects--South Africa.

Irrigation farming--South Africa--History--20th century.

Irrigation farming.

Climatic changes--South Africa--History--20th century.

Climatic changes.

White people--South Africa--Economic conditions--20th century.

White people.

Climatology--Political aspects--South Africa.

Climatology.

Water diversion--South Africa--History--20th century.

Water diversion.

South Africa--Race relations.

South Africa.

Kalahari Desert.

Physical Description:

321 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago, IL : The University of Chicago Press, 2024.

Summary:

"A compelling and timely history, Green Lands for White Men explores how white farmers in southern Africa grappled with arid environments and climate change as they sought to consolidate white dominance over the Black majority. In the early twentieth century, white southern Africans engaged in bitter disputes over the reality of climate change and its consequences. Many whites argued that rainfall was declining and that if they did not do something about it, the subcontinent would become a desert and white civilization in the region would collapse. The believers in climate apocalypse found their savior in Ernest Schwarz, a geology professor who promised that diverting rivers into the Kalahari would restore southern Africa's once-rainy climate, creating newly greened lands for the settlement of millions of whites and securing the future of a 'white man's country' in Africa. Green Lands for White Men uses the story of this popular (though fortunately unrealized) attempt to engineer southern Africa's climate and racial order to examine the agrarian roots of apartheid in the mid-twentieth century. We live in a time of growing climate catastrophe, public mistrust of scientific experts, and emboldened white nationalism. In this book we witness this on another continent and in another century and see how these apparently unrelated factors came together to reinforce a worldview that proved highly resistant to argumentation and challenge by scientists"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Lost lakes and vanished rivers

The origins of rain

The invading desert

White men's fears

Watering the white man's land

"The Kalahari dream"

Redemption reimagined

Afterlives

Epilogue.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780226831800

0226831809

9780226834696

0226834697

OCLC:

1417204260