Building Imperial Frontiers. Business, Science and Karakul Sheep Farming in (German) South-West Africa (1903–1939) This article examines the development of Karakul farming at the colonial frontier of South-West Africa. It covers both the development of Karakul farming as a project for improving the economic conditions of the colonies, and its consolidation after the First World War. The paper is divided into two main parts. The first part focuses in particular on the network between agricultural scientists, who advocated genetic science, and German fur entrepreneurs, who searched for new suppliers of resources. This network ultimately led to the creation of Karakul farming in German South-West Africa. The article demonstrates that German business and scientists were much more active in colonial projects and German empire-building than existing business histories have shown. Secondly, after the loss of empire, the German fur business and colonial office continued to invest in Namibian Karakul farming, stimulating its recovery and boom in the 1930s. However, the article also argues that the consolidation phase went along with the decline of the (commercial) model of Karakul farming introduced before the war.

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This article is devoted to the attempt of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) to create a new fur trading empire in Eastern Siberia and Kamchatka during and after the Civil War (1919-1925). It was one of the most controversial and substantial attempts by a foreign company to do business in Soviet Russia, and therefore is a unique case study for understanding the relationship between the young USSR and foreign business. The Kamchatka expedition is often understood as a case of the HBC's naïve and poor judgment of the political risks involved. However, this article argues for a broader understanding of the expedition, one that takes into account specific business strategies, geo-economic Arctic developments, and the historical conditions in which trade in the area had unfolded in the decades leading up to the First World War. Concerning the last point, American traders based in Nome and Alaska had successfully traded in the Kamchatka area and set up a system in which they provided supplies to native and Russian communities in the Far East in return for furs (either by barter or for legal tender). Importantly, the system made inhabitants of the area dependent upon these supplies. The HBC's endeavor in Kamchatka was an attempt to take over and continue these lucrative operations, but it also suited its expansionist business strategy elsewhere. From the early twentieth century, the HBC had been setting up new trade posts in the Canadian Arctic in a response to suffocating competition in mainland Canada. As such, the Kamchatka operation seemed like a logical extension of this expansionist strategy. In addition, doing business in the high north led private business to form specific expectations: state presence in the area was feeble, regardless of its political allegiance. The article, then, explores the fortunes of the company in Siberia. It shows that the company easily adapted to local conditions by successfully contracting local middlemen. It also shows that the difficulties of operating in the area were not only caused by underestimation of the political risks, but also because the company suffered from enormous logistical problems: