Germans on the Kenyan Coast

Nina Berman provides a nuanced, fresh, and contemplative interpretation of the colonial and post independence interaction between Kenya and Germany, shedding light on the romantic, psychosexual and psychosocial, and economic entanglements that tie German tourists to their Kenyan hosts on the Kenyan coast.

* Daily Nation *

Nina Berman's Germans on the Kenyan Coast: Land, Charity, and Romance is a thoughtful effort to draw connections between the ever-vexed land question in the postcolonial world, the frequently oversimplified complexity of the history behind this, and the often-marginalized ways in which the personal has played as important a role as the political in externally-driven material development in Africa. As such, it is a welcome addition to an otherwise limited writing of its type.

* Europe Now *

Berman has done a wonderful job of providing a balance between detailing observations and personal stories from the ethnographic fieldwork and offering academic analyses. Thus, this is a suitable book for undergraduate and graduate level courses in tourism studies, social development, migration, urban development, humanitarian studies, and qualitative methods. Additionally, this book will no doubt contribute to a rethinking of the need to balance the power in the core-periphery relationships.

* Anthropos *

Berman provides a compelling narrative that hopefully inspires similar analyses of other postcolonial African states in the future.

* German Studies Review *

Germans on the Kenyan Coast is an informative and thought-provoking work that deserves to be read by scholars of Kenya and those interested in globalized structures of gentrification, north-south humanitarian assistance, and love and romance in Africa.

* African Studies Quarter