Askari und Fitafita: 'Farbige' Söldner in den deutschen Kolonien (Askari and Fitafita: 'Colored' Mercenaries in the German Colonies)

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.) The use of non-white mercenaries in conquest and policing was common to all colonial powers, solving problems of expense in maintaining large colonial armies, as well as susceptibility of European soldiers to disease in tropical environments. Some invested their wages to become rural power brokers or urban traders after the end of their service. Because of gaps in the primary literature that often rendered colonial soldiers invisible, except as a nondescript mass, the author illustrates the individuality of colonial troops with a life history in each chapter. The breadth and comparison offered in this fine book is at the expense of a detailed analysis of how colonial soldiers were entangled with the political economies and local cultures of individual colonies.