Since Germany became a colonial power relatively late, it has received limited attention from postcolonial theorists and histories of colonialism. Susanne Zantop uncovers Germany’s colonial legacy and imagination, highlighting the role of colonial fantasies—colonialism without colonies—in shaping German national identity. Through analyses of historical, anthropological, literary, and popular texts, Zantop examines imaginary colonial encounters between "Germans" and "natives" in late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century literature, demonstrating how these fantasies served as rehearsals for actual colonial endeavors in Africa, South America, and the Pacific. From the sixteenth century onward, Germans engaged in an imaginary quest for colonial conquest that evolved into a collective obsession. Zantop reveals the gendered nature of this colonial imagination through critical readings of popular novels, plays, and travel literature that depict sexual conquest and intimate relations between colonizers and the colonized. She also analyzes scientific articles, philosophical essays, and political pamphlets that contributed to a racist colonial discourse, showing that early manifestations of the German colonial imagination contained notions of a distinct, often superior, German national identity compared to others.
