ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that cross-cultural encounter between Germans and Africans in late nineteenth-century travel narratives is characterized by a dialectical combination of impulses: fi rst, an interest in alternative regions of human experience and appreciation of cultural heterogeneity, and, second, expansionist aspirations fueled by growing German nationalism and inter-European rivalry. As we shall see, the incorporation of these contradictory tendencies in travel writing refl ects and infl uences not only the authors’ understanding of their own identity, but also, on a wider scale, Germany’s evolving national identity and the nature of German colonial experience. For the narratives were written during a period of extensive internal political turmoil, which saw the unifi cation of the German Reich in 1871 and its emergence as a colonial power in Africa in 1884. The travel narratives therefore not only document events in German colonial history, but they also tell the story of changes in German national self-understanding as it evolved in the repeated encounter with the “dark” continent.
