“What a Change When the Tide had Ebbed!”: Rivers, Empire, and a Scottish Transport Company in Colonial Malawi

Authors

Abstract

The expansion of European empires in Africa relied heavily on navigable river networks. When a Scottish firm commenced its river transportation business in the landlocked region of what would become colonial Nyasaland (and later independent Malawi), on rivers that were unreliable and unpredictable, it paved the way for an expensive and inefficient transport system that would place significant limits on the nation’s economic development and its capacity to trade with the outside world.

Author Biography

Ben Wilkie, University of Glasgow, Scotland

Dr. Benjamin Wilkie is a historian whose research spans Australian and Scottish imperial and colonial history, business history, and environmental history. In 2019 he was a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Glasgow Library, where he investigated the archives of the Glasgow-based African Lakes Corporation.

Photo of Frederick L. M. Moir

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Published

2020-05-07

Issue

Section

Spring