Why even before the whole slavery and imperialism thing were the African nations so behindt he rest of the world? It doesn't make sense to me being that their climate is much more bearable than most of the other climates (no harsh winters), I would think they could have had less in their way of advancing technologically.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs_and_Steel
Guns, Germs, and Steel

That's a large part of the explanation.

Of course, the statement itself is a bit misleading. There were lots of relatively advanced civilizations in Africa - civilizations that were decently comparable with contemporary Mediterannean world ones. The Sahelian empires (Mali, Songhay) ; Ethiopia ; the Swahili City-States on the east coast all come to mind.

For all that they were advanced, though, they were vulnerable, and their vulnerability - mostly, in all cases, a vulnerability to the sea - came back to haunt them.

For the Sahel, their greatest strength was their control of the Saharan trade routes. They were inland (and at times, outright landlocked) kingdoms, and once the Saharan trade routes became unimportant with exploration down the coast of Africa, they went from controling strategic trade routes (and benefiting from it) to being in the middle of nowhere. Combine that with the spread of the Sahara (also hit Ethiopia) and you get a nasty recipe to take down a civilization. The Swahili, on the other hand, was very much focused on the sea ; but as an ensemble of City States, they had little by way of a standing navy. The portuguesse had a field day with piracy, breaking the Swahili shipping lanes apart.

Just stuff to keep in mind.

For a long time, African civilizations were isolated. Camels were introduced to Africa only during the rise of Rome and even then, only the most experienced traders could travel to the sub-sharan africa.

Consiquently, contact between mediterranean civilizations and Africa remained low. Isolation alone was a major cause, I believe.

Also, farming in Africa is much more difficult than in the damp and stable enviroirment of europe. Most of europe and middle east doesn't have harsh winters either.

That's a large part of the explanation.

Of course, the statement itself is a bit misleading. There were lots of relatively advanced civilizations in Africa - civilizations that were decently comparable with contemporary Mediterannean world ones. The Sahelian empires (Mali, Songhay) ; Ethiopia ; the Swahili City-States on the east coast all come to mind.

For all that they were advanced, though, they were vulnerable, and their vulnerability - mostly, in all cases, a vulnerability to the sea - came back to haunt them.

For the Sahel, their greatest strength was their control of the Saharan trade routes. They were inland (and at times, outright landlocked) kingdoms, and once the Saharan trade routes became unimportant with exploration down the coast of Africa, they went from controling strategic trade routes (and benefiting from it) to being in the middle of nowhere. Combine that with the spread of the Sahara (also hit Ethiopia) and you get a nasty recipe to take down a civilization. The Swahili, on the other hand, was very much focused on the sea ; but as an ensemble of City States, they had little by way of a standing navy. The portuguesse had a field day with piracy, breaking the Swahili shipping lanes apart.

Just stuff to keep in mind.Yes, well said Oda. The key word in your post being "vulnerability" and you've also rightly pointed out the manner in which their strategic advantages became undone over time. That was a massive blow, from which many have not yet recovered.

This easy vulnerability, and its drastic, long lasting consequences, often lead to the misunderstanding that "Africa was so backward". It shouldn't be underestimated what key economic players the African powers mentioned by Oda were in the Middle Ages. For some weird reason, perhaps because of posting on a civ board, I always find the story of Mansa Musa's generosity in Cairo during his Hajj to be the most telling example of this (but there are far better accounts of Africa's economic clout at the time). Anyway, look him up in Wiki and see what it has to say.
For a long time, African civilizations were isolated. Camels were introduced to Africa only during the rise of Rome and even then, only the most experienced traders could travel to the sub-sharan africa.

Consiquently, contact between mediterranean civilizations and Africa remained low. Isolation alone was a major cause, I believe.Isolated? Hardly.

If you're on about the Ancient times, then perhaps you're forgetting the menace and commercial acumen of Carthage, the diplomatic and trading hand in the Middle East played by the Axiumite Kingdom, the Christian allure of Egypt and north east Africa from early Anno Domini well into the Middle Ages, not to mention the Egyptians themselves! Isolated like how exactly?

As for trade with Europe, between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance, to not put too finer point on it, the Mediterranean and Europe simply wasn't worth trading with in any significant way. Isolation from European trade in the Middle Ages would have been about as crippling as missing out on trade from Africa today. OK, slight exaggeration but you get the point. There was no big reason to prioritise trade with Europe, nor was it missed much.

The Swahili traders of the East Coast of Africa, for example, were not sloppy with their role as agents of Arabian and Asian trade. And neither were Asians sloppy with reaping the benefits of trade with wealthy Africans. India's monolithic middle aged cotton industry saw Africans as major trading partners. The wealth of Mali, Ethiopia etc was not to be missed out on. This Indian commercial interest in Africa and the Arabian trading agents, added yet more prosperity to the East Coast. Not to mention breaking down "isolation". I'm not so sure what commerce was flowing in from further east in Asia. But Africa ~ at least Northern, Saharan, West and East Coasts, was certainly not isolated, whether in Ancient times or Medieval.

Isolated? Hardly.

Isolated enough for the techonolgies, culture and such to spread in enough large scales.

Which technologies and culture are you referring to? And when?

Which technologies and culture are you referring to? And when?

Bright day
Pottery wheel, plant and animal domestication? As was alread said in post 2. I am not very fond of Mr. Diamond but some of his idea do have a merit. And Axum, Kush, Egypt, Numidia and Carthago are all Afro-Asiatic cultures. Afaik the oldest purely african culture is Nok, and that is 2nd century CE!

I wouldn't say the Mediterranean (by that I mean the entire Med) wasn't worth trading with. It was the trade route par excellence. Granted some of the civilizations in this area after the fall of Rome weren't exactly the greatest when compared to Ancient Egypt or Rome for example (Latin-Iberian-Goths, Vandal-Berbers etc), but the Med was most definitely a significant nexus of trade and commerce which Arabs and Berbers would control at least as far as North Africa and Iberia were concerned, and interconnect them with China, India and Persia in global commerce.

Bright day
Pottery wheel, plant and animal domestication? As was alread said in post 2. I am not very fond of Mr. Diamond but some of his idea do have a merit. And Axum, Kush, Egypt, Numidia and Carthago are all Afro-Asiatic cultures. Afaik the oldest purely african culture is Nok, and that is 2nd century CE!

I guess what we're really talking about then is sub-Sahara Africa.

I can understand about the past backwardness in reference to Jared Diamond's idea, but they really should be doing better in the latter half of the 20th century with all the monetary aid and whatnot. Some African countries do posseses incredible mineral resources that should be theoretically a plus in the modern age, but did not prove so.

I wouldn't say the Mediterranean (by that I mean the entire Med) wasn't worth trading with. It was the trade route par excellence. Granted some of the civilizations in this area after the fall of Rome weren't exactly the greatest when compared to Ancient Egypt or Rome for example (Latin-Iberian-Goths, Vandal-Berbers etc), but the Med was most definitely a significant nexus of trade and commerce which Arabs and Berbers would control at least as far as North Africa and Iberia were concerned, and interconnect them with China, India and Persia in global commerce.OK. Let's try again then. More precisely and succinctly: Europe wasn't, whereas the Med still was. And Africa wasn't isolated either way.

More ramblingly: The administrative hub of that trade route par excellence shifted from Europe, Rome basically, over east and to the southern coast* (Iberia becoming an exception here). The Med remained lucrative, but the wider trading networks maintained by Rome, up into Europe proper, were gone**. Of course this was because of those Arabs and Berbers linking the Med into the wider Ummah, stretching out to Asia, as my bold highlights in your post.

Still rambingly: Sadly for the Latin-Iberian-Goths, Vandal-Berbers, that meant their lands were no longer seen as such important trade Meccas anymore (sorry, couldn't resist the pun). Those people and lands lost their connection to that wider trade route par excellence, a connection they enjoyed when Rome was "The Top Med Dawg". That Dawg changed and the emphasis on trading with those lands did as a result. Result for Africans? Don't look to Europe for the De Nero (ok, so my resistance is weak today).

*That's the African coast funnily enough. ;)
** Remember that the Arab economy was underpinned by Gold, not Silver. There was less Gold floating about in society and under the ground in Europe than in there was in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. That wasn't the case with Silver at the time of "the Dawg switch over" period.
I can understand about the past backwardness in reference to Jared Diamond's idea, but they really should be doing better in the latter half of the 20th century with all the monetary aid and whatnot. Some African countries do posseses incredible mineral resources that should be theoretically a plus in the modern age, but did not prove so.Oh, so you're saying there are holes in Diamond's great work? :mischief:
I guess what we're really talking about then is sub-Sahara Africa.Shifting the goal posts now are we? :mischief:

Well ok, but for me the Med is a geographical area which is both Southern European, North African and Near Eastern. I think I was objecting to characertizing it as merely European or not African. All these regions share certain similiarites, culture and history, in spite of being on different continents and having obvious differences. Also what I want to say is that the Latin-Iberians and Berbers (both under Muslim influence, and Berbers being North African) did reintegrate into global trade and have wealthy kingdoms based on trade routes, and that the routes used by the Romans didn't exactly disappear but were taken over by the Arabs ;) You're right about the gold from Sub-Saharan Africa moving into North Africa, Europe and Asia, this was a major trade route.

But I think Uiler is right, part of the confusion is with labeling regions. It would probably make more sense to distiguish between the Med, which really is a region of its own, and sub-Saharan Africa.

Shifting the goal posts now are we? :mischief:

Are we? Or are you? Okay, Africa- Pygmies, Bushmen, Khoisan, these are hardly hubs of commerce, hardly ever were. All of what you listed were groups not limited to Africa, indeed sharing ver few things with the subsaharan africa. And weren't those Swahili under Omani?

I guess we need a definition of what is meant by "Africa" in the OP, then don't we?

Typically when we discussed "African" history in class, the mediterranean cultures are usually not discussed because, well, they're mediterranean cultures and their history is largely dominated by its connections to the euro-mediterranean and middle eastern civilizations. So that's what I took as the OP's intent.

I came from a basic geographical definition, altogether different. :)

I guess we need a definition of what is meant by "Africa" in the OP, then don't we?

Or we can go "okay there were some developed nations in Africa, but why those primitive were so primitive?"

Typically when we discussed "African" history in class, the mediterranean cultures are usually not discussed because, well, they're mediterranean cultures and their history is largely dominated by its connections to the euro-mediterranean and middle eastern civilizations. So that's what I took as the OP's intent.

I don't think it's fair to say that North Africa was dominated by Europe, in Ancient history it's rather the other way around. I would say that the Middle East had a strong legacy there though, but then again so did areas like Nubia on Egypt etc.

Or we can go "okay there were some developed nations in Africa, but why those primitive were so primitive?"We can indeed. But, imho, that horse has been flogged past death. I find an undue prevelance of this side of the coin being debated, it gets boring and misleading. So I wouldn't be taking part in that one, sorry. I'll stick to pointing out the misconceptions instead. :)

I don't think it's fair to say that North Africa was dominated by Europe, in Ancient history it's rather the other way around. I would say that the Middle East had a strong legacy there though, but then again so did areas like Nubia on Egypt etc.

Sorry, I worded it poorly. I was referring to the connections themselves dominating its history--in both directions. I did not mean to suggest one side of the water was dominating the other.

Colialization.

I don't think it's fair to say that North Africa was dominated by Europe, in Ancient history it's rather the other way around. I would say that the Middle East had a strong legacy there though, but then again so did areas like Nubia on Egypt etc.

A) He did not said it was dominated by Europe, but by connection Euro-mediterrean and Near (I added that because I hate when people think Lebanon and Isreal are in Middle East) and Middle eastern civilizations. I would go as far as say that they were all part of common Mediterrean culture. That sea was more a high speed lane for spread of goods and information.

B) In ancient history there is one, [U]one/U], (or two okay, but Ptolemaic holdings were pitiful) case of African control of european territory, that of Carthage colonies in Hispania.

A) He did not said it was dominated by Europe, but by connection Euro-mediterrean and Near (I added that because I hate when people think Lebanon and Isreal are in Middle East) and Middle eastern civilizations. I would go as far as say that they were all part of common Mediterrean culture. That sea was more a high speed lane for spread of goods and information.

B) In ancient history there is one, [U]one/U], (or two okay, but Ptolemaic holdings were pitiful) case of African control of european territory, that of Carthage colonies in Hispania.

A) I already stated that the Mediterranean had basic affinities on the 3 continents. I thought he was implying that North African civs were always dominated by Europe.

B) dominating was a poor choice of words to begin with, which is what I was really objecting to. I prefer to speak of influence, as in Egyptian influence on Minoan civilization and art.

edit: this is a pretty dumb debate btw

edit: this is a pretty dumb debate btw

True.
So I would say that Black Africa in olden times was backwards because of geography and in modern times because everybody but common africans like it that way. (in past 50 prices of commodities went down almost every year, that would be hard with stable prosperous Africa, would it not?)

True.
So I would say that Black Africa in olden times was backwards because of geography and in modern times because everybody but common africans like it that way. (in past 50 prices of commodities went down almost every year, that would be hard with stable prosperous Africa, would it not?)

I don't know, perhaps we would be overlooking sub Saharan civs too. I'm not an expert by any means on that.

I just thought of another nice example of Egyptian influence on Greek art though, the Kouros in the Archaic period, which would eventually lead to classical Greek sculpture. Proto-Greeks and Greeks were definitely influenced by Egypt, especially artistically and I think in the early forms of civilization.

The more backward parts of Africa were the more isolated ones, for a very simple answer. The same can be said of virtually everywhere else - isolation, in general breeds backwardness. (CF Asia)

The parts in Africa that were not isolated by virtue of trade routes - Ethiopia ; the Sahelian kingdoms, the Swahili coast (the Omani domination was an on-again, off-again thing, and rarely if ever applied to the whole coast), etc all developed reasonably modern (by their era's standards) empire. When they fell off those trade routes, they dwindled again, due to the increased isolation.

As Diamond put it, there are very, VERY few cradles of civilization ; ie places where human civilization formed its basics (writing, etc) on its own, rather than picking the idea up from the neighboring regions.

IMHO the real qustion is still not really answered.
No doubt, the Sahel Civs did reasonably well, and they did have connections with the Med.
But, the really hard-to-understand fact is why on Earth there didn't emerge a single Central African Civ worth mentioning. Can't be the climate by itself. Khmer/Indonesia or Mayans/lowland Incans shared that very same rain forrest. And seriously, there a tons of way more hostile environments on Earth (Tibet, anyone?). Also, can't be the lack of population - after all those areas are right next to the Craddle of Mankind.
So, the only really striking arguement may indeed be malaria.

But, the really hard-to-understand fact is why on Earth there didn't emerge a single Central African Civ worth mentioning.

[...]

So, the only really striking arguement may indeed be malaria.Or perhaps that their histories are too infrequently told? We just don't know enough about them.

@DocT

What about Great Zimbabwe? That's about the best example I can think of in Sub-Saharan Africa, though I know nothing about the entire region really.

One of my own pet theories (no doubt espoused previously by others with credentials) is that prolonged conflict is a motivator for technological advancement. Thus Europe, with its disparate and constantly warring people (be it Athens versus Sparta, Rome versus wave after wave of Barbarian, or France versus England) took the "baton" as it were from the Near/Middle East after Persian subjugation reduced the amount of conflict in the area. Perhaps the problem was that there was too much space / too little competition for resources so that warfare did not occur with the same frequency in sub-Saharan Africa?

@DocT

What about Great Zimbabwe? That's about the best example I can think of in Sub-Saharan Africa, though I know nothing about the entire region really.
Not exactly rain forrest. ;)

Hey Ram, I wasn't trying to insult Africa! Surely there may be reasons why not much is told about the peoples living there outside their own "responsibility" (slavery, colonization) - but still, haven't heard of a Chichen Itza or Angkor Waht there either.

Not exactly rain forrest. ;)



No, but still one of the most impressive set of historical buildings in Sub-Saharan Africa. If you're looking for comparisons to Maya or something, this is probably the closest I know of.

Not exactly rain forrest. ;)

Empire of Kongo?

EDIT: obligatory wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Kongo) link.

Kongo wasn't really in rainforest (it was in modern Angola).

To my mind, the main reason why most African cultures remained technologically behind those in other parts of the world is that they never developed writing. The exception, of course, was Ethiopia. Writing reached most of sub-Saharan Africa only with Islam and Christianity, and that's when we see real empires forming and technological advances being made. Before then, much of Africa was at a similar stage to Europe in late antiquity - fairly civilised, but not very advanced, and leaving virtually no records for modern historians, which is why (a) so little is known about them, and (b) they tend to be overly denigrated. This applies both to northern European cultures before the coming of Christianity there, and to most of sub-Saharan Africa before modern times.

Of course, you could always play my African scenario (link in sig) and find out more...

Kongo wasn't really in rainforest (it was in modern Angola).


And modern Congo suprisingly. Sao Salvador its capital lies very near the border between the modern countires.

For a long time, African civilizations were isolated. Camels were introduced to Africa only during the rise of Rome and even then, only the most experienced traders could travel to the sub-sharan africa.

Consiquently, contact between mediterranean civilizations and Africa remained low. Isolation alone was a major cause, I believe.

Also, farming in Africa is much more difficult than in the damp and stable enviroirment of europe. Most of europe and middle east doesn't have harsh winters either.

It is argued that the African continent is not capable of supporting a population remotely becoming of it's immense size. Africa's popualation crested out early in history. Even at the time of the Romans, most of Africa's population lay in Egypt, and most of that within one mile of the River Nile. A combination of it's climates, terrain, and soil make Africa simply incapable, as I said before, of supporting a population remotely becoming of it's size.

I wrote a History of Africa for one of my History papers, I can answer more questions if you had them.

I think the landmass of Europe is a big reason. The Mediteranian allowed for trade and communication (in both Europe and North Africa) that prevented isolationism. In Africa, those who could have trade and communication weren't isolated and became advanced (until those trade routes disapeared).

I do think the small, narrow peninsulas that existed in Europe (Italy, Greece) created competition that led to wars, which spurred technological advancements. Combined with increased communication and competition, Europe advanced. Those areas in Africa not connected to Europe through trade didn't learn about this advancement. They fell further behind. Eventually, their technological backwardness (and the fact that they weren't Christian or even Muslim) left them vulnerable for exploitation in the slave trade (both European christians and arabs forbid taking slaves of their own religion, so they turned to the parts of Africa that lacked either religion). Then the problem got compounded as European colonialism set it to benefit Europe at the expense of Africa.

European Christians didn't forbid taking slaves of their own religion. On the contrary, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century missionaries argued that being a Christian and being a slave were perfectly compatible (this was to persuade slave-owners that it was OK to baptise slaves). The slavers didn't target West Africans because they weren't Christians - they targeted them simply because they were there and available.

Of course, Catholics at least shouldn't have been enslaving anyone. In 1537, Pope Paul III decreed that it was not permissible to enslave human beings irrespective of whether they were Christian or not. Of course, everyone ignored him.

Why even before the whole slavery and imperialism thing were the African nations so behindt he rest of the world? It doesn't make sense to me being that their climate is much more bearable than most of the other climates (no harsh winters), I would think they could have had less in their way of advancing technologically. Where do you get the idea they were backwards? That's either extremely racist or ignorant. African kingdoms weren't any more or less advanced than the rest of the world, in fact Timbuktu was a huge thriving culture center during the middle ages. No further offense, but compare 14th century Timbuktu to 14th century America, and you'll see just how far those "backwards Africans" have come along. It just fell in importance when faster sea routes controlled by Europeans and Arabs took over as the primary way to transport goods and people around the continent. The interior didn't appear to offer much until expeditions to find new modern resources started coming into fruition. The tropics are not bearable either. Crops do not grow, disease is rampant, and clearing jungles before the age of power saws and bulldozers took a lot of time and fire. Ideal climate for agriculture and growth is Mediterranean, not tropical. Still, opportunity and competition is what triggers advancement. It's not fair to call tribal societies backwards because of their lack of technological innovations compared to the "mainstream". If Rome didn't conquer the celtic and germanic tribes of northern Europe, chances are they'd be viewed as "backwards" and not advanced as well. The truth is, compared to what they knew, they were equal or even superior, and therefore complacent. The opportunities for Africa dried up when the Arab influence left, and European imperialism ground them under their heel, and many kingdoms in Africa were subverted because of the greed of their kings (selling away land and of course, their people for cash pay offs from the various companies taking root in Africa). There needs to be an interest in furthering their technology, whether its to terraform or wage war better. Many African tribes, like native American tribes and the european tribes of ancient times didn't have this need. When Rome took over Europe, you know that the old tribes were taking notice. Similarly, many modern African countries (the successful ones in particular) have taken notice of what the first world does and develop on their own just fine. South Africa and Nigeria are great examples

The more backward parts of Africa were the more isolated ones, for a very simple answer. The same can be said of virtually everywhere else - isolation, in general breeds backwardness. (CF Asia)No it doesn't. China and India were isolated from the west for thousands of years and they were technologically ahead of Europe during the middle ages. Gunpowder, compasses, paper, block printing, metal forging and the Damascus steel process, these were all eastern innovations, not Western. Indian states were isolated from each other but all developed rather well and on par with, if not faster than their european contemporaries during Ancient times. This is why India has something like 780 indeginous languages.

China and India are enormous regions full of different peoples. "India" wasn't a single country until the British made it into one. Both India and China could be viewed as analogous to Europe - collections of peoples in competition with each other. Plus, of course, they had the advantage of great river systems with extremely fertile land. Other than the Nile, Africa lacks that; the Niger and the Congo don't have the great floodplains of the other major rivers. And African cultures typically were more isolated from each other than Indian, Chinese, or European ones - isolated by rainforest, desert, or sheer distance.

Regarding terraforming and the surrounding climate / landscape:

When speaking of sub-Saharan Africa in this context it should also be remembered: a) the beliefs these people had about the land around them and their place in it. b) the systems which they employed to exploit the land ie. agricultural or nomadic.

a) Many of the religious systems in effect in sub-Saharan Africa, prior to and alongside the introduction of monotheistic beliefs, did not view man as the caretaker / groundsman of creation, with a free hand to do with it as he will.

b) Many here were Nomadic peoples, who did not seek to terraform the land in any significant way.

Much the same could be said of many of the northern Native Americans, whom we also generally perceive as "backward". You could probably say the same for the Australian Aboriginies.

Which leads me onto another aspect of the whole "superior and inferior" and "backwards and advanced" civilisation debate: Where does the value lie? In sustainable, equitable living or the ability to manufacture advanced weaponry and raise large, disparate, urban populations? Does it lie in spiritual or monetary filfullment? (Are these compatible or not?) Are we more backwards or advanced if we can fly in a jet plane, yet cannot make our minds up about our place in the grand scheme of things? More backwards or advanced if we have a virtually crimeless society, yet cannot save our children from serious disease?

Is there really some intrinsic and objective human value in any of these things?

Hey Ram, I wasn't trying to insult Africa! Surely there may be reasons why not much is told about the peoples living there outside their own "responsibility" (slavery, colonization) - but still, haven't heard of a Chichen Itza or Angkor Waht there either.I didn't think you were trying to mate. I was trying to point out our collective historical deficiencies on CFC History in general when speaking of Africa. We cannot mention those notable kingdoms and powers, not because they did not exist, but because of that old chestnut: History is Written By The Victor.

Within that line, and mentioned in other posts, is also the fact that many African cultures did not write their histories. Neither did much of Native America. Again, we tend to think of them as backwards too, in general.

It's interesting to note that when African histories did start to get written, down from their long stretching oral history formats*, this was often with a European Colonial Historian alongside. A very telling example of this is the history of Rwanda. I mentioned this in that Divide and Rule Thread. An interesting if somewhat distasteful byproduct of this writing synergy is that one group typically gets put down, is presented as inferior and undesirable, a blot on the landscape. That well suited the Divide and Rule strategy of the colonial power, as it did the local party seeking to gain an upperhand - but it's left us with libraries crammed with warped and derisive histories. These histories are what ours today are built on.

*It's also interesting that many oral history traditions are specifically designed to be immune to distortion. You can look at the way the Hindu Vedas have been passed down in pristine fashion for many millenia. (They may have passed on some disagreeable messages, but those were not warped in the process of being passed down.)
Where do you get the idea they were backwards? That's either extremely racist or ignorant. African kingdoms weren't any more or less advanced than the rest of the world, in fact Timbuktu was a huge thriving culture center during the middle ages. No further offense, but compare 14th century Timbuktu to 14th century America, and you'll see just how far those "backwards Africans" have come along. It just fell in importance when faster sea routes controlled by Europeans and Arabs took over as the primary way to transport goods and people around the continent. The interior didn't appear to offer much until expeditions to find new modern resources started coming into fruition. The tropics are not bearable either. Crops do not grow, disease is rampant, and clearing jungles before the age of power saws and bulldozers took a lot of time and fire. Ideal climate for agriculture and growth is Mediterranean, not tropical. Still, opportunity and competition is what triggers advancement. It's not fair to call tribal societies backwards because of their lack of technological innovations compared to the "mainstream". If Rome didn't conquer the celtic and germanic tribes of northern Europe, chances are they'd be viewed as "backwards" and not advanced as well. The truth is, compared to what they knew, they were equal or even superior, and therefore complacent. The opportunities for Africa dried up when the Arab influence left, and European imperialism ground them under their heel, and many kingdoms in Africa were subverted because of the greed of their kings (selling away land and of course, their people for cash pay offs from the various companies taking root in Africa). There needs to be an interest in furthering their technology, whether its to terraform or wage war better. Many African tribes, like native American tribes and the european tribes of ancient times didn't have this need. When Rome took over Europe, you know that the old tribes were taking notice. Similarly, many modern African countries (the successful ones in particular) have taken notice of what the first world does and develop on their own just fine. South Africa and Nigeria are great examplesExcellent post there :clap:

Again I will disagree.

Celtic and Germanic tribes worked iron, built cities, they had writing. Compare that to Bushmen. In Africa we saw in historic times lack of population movement- I know only of spread of Bantu, does anybody know of any other migration? In Old World thousand of years BCE tribes could move thousands of miles. Persians and Medes into modern Iran, other Aryans into India, yet more Indo-Europeans into Central Europe and from there to Italy where they became Latins.

Nobody is saying negroids are inferior, indeed have they been seen as such, nobody would wonder why they fell behind and we would not have this discussion.

Oh and why do you have to post that "noble savage" tirade:rolleyes:?

Because you still have not identified an objective value system upon which we can come to conclusions of what is "advanced" or "backward". You say migration? I say, so what? The Canadian Goose migrates.

Because you still have not identified an objective value system upon which we can come to conclusions of what is "advanced" or "backward". You say migration? I say, so what? The Canadian Goose migrates.

Why do you take such an offense at it? I am perfectly willing to say that my own people were technologicly and societaly backwards for several thousand years.

And I talked about ages, while all of Europe was laready in Iron Age, large parts of Africa were still in Stone Age. Large parts of Africa peaked in Iron Age- and were destroyed by more Europeans with more advanced technology and society. Yes! A more advanced society! Do you know how Menelik saved Ethiopia? Not by making better weapons, but by modernising Ethiopia's feudal society.

EDIT: And if you do not have anything to say than don't speak.

And if you are so in need of "onjective" criteria how about: percentage of people employed in primary sector and energy avaible per person ( in W).

How does that indicate what "advanced" or "backwards" even is? Again, you didn't answer the primary question in what you rashly branded as my "noble savage tirade". Where does the value lie? Answer that, then start coming with the indicators of that value.


I'm really wondering why you think I am taking offense. I am not. All I am doing is questioning the terms that this thread is taking for granted. And I would say that your edit was an error of judgement on your part Gladi, no need for that. I have got something to say,you're just ignoring it, and I'll say it whether you think I should or not.

How does that indicate what "advanced" or "backwards" even is? Again, you didn't answer the primary question in what you rashly branded as my "noble savage tirade". Where does the value lie? Answer that, then start coming with the indicators of that value.


I'm really wondering why you think I am taking offense. I am not. All I am doing is questioning the terms that this thread is taking for granted. And I would say that your edit was an error of judgement on your part Gladi, no need for that. I have got something to say,you're just ignoring it, and I'll say it whether you think I should or not.

I did not call your question that. I called Raven 9983's post that. So were for example Bushmen in Stone Age till failry recently, yes or no? (And if you say I generalise Bushmen for Africa, you used Afro-Asiatic cultures and cultural implants to show yout view of Africa). You just say no no no, yes I am rather angry, and you are feinting me well. So would "differences" fit you better mister:rolleyes:?

EDIT: And energy avaible measures use of resources and people employed in the sectors (primary, secondary and tertiary) efectivness in aquiring them.

Isn't using the Khoisan to show Africa was primitive like using the Lapps to show Europe was primitive?

[Gladi] I don't really see why this point is relevant, but there have been many migrations within Africa. Possibly the best-known are the mfecane of the early nineteenth century, in which - for reasons still not really understood - vast numbers of people in southern Africa began to migrate large distances, especially north. This was a major factor in the spread of Christianity during this period, since even people who weren't Christian tended to talk about it along the way.

I don't know why you keep talking about "Bushmen". Who, precisely, are you talking about? And who exactly do you think lives in Africa? True, "Bushmen", whoever they are, may not work iron and build cities, but there were plenty of Africans who did, long before any Europeans or Arabs got there. Look at Ghana, for example. I would certainly say that the civilisations of the Saheb were easily the equal of the pre-Christian northern European cultures (which were themselves not much behind Rome itself, simply lacking such a good military); it seems to me just perverse to deny this. And, as I have already said, both groups have been unfairly denigrated because (a) they got conquered by other people, and (b) they were largely illiterate and did not leave behind records of their history.

I think it's pretty harsh of you to lambast Rambuchan for posting a "'noble savage' tirade" (when he was only asking what the basis is for these value judgements, not praising any "savages" at all) when your own comments betray such ignorance of African history.

Again I will disagree.

Celtic and Germanic tribes worked iron, built cities, they had writing. Compare that to Bushmen. In Africa we saw in historic times lack of population movement- I know only of spread of Bantu, does anybody know of any other migration?

The Fula in the Sahel are another example. They spread from what is now Senegal most of the way across Africa. Also the Zande around 1 AD and Nilo-Saharan peoples in really ancient times.

Okay. Thanks.

No it doesn't. China and India were isolated from the west for thousands of years and they were technologically ahead of Europe during the middle ages. Gunpowder, compasses, paper, block printing, metal forging and the Damascus steel process, these were all eastern innovations, not Western. Indian states were isolated from each other but all developed rather well and on par with, if not faster than their european contemporaries during Ancient times. This is why India has something like 780 indeginous languages.

I said isolated, not isolated *from the west*.

In addition to what Plotinus said, there's the simple fact that China and India were in contact *with each other*, as well as with South-East Asia, Japan, Korea (asian metal block printing originated there, btw). That's not isolated by any stretch of the imagination.

Plus, China at least had contact with the west as often as not in her history - via Persia-Arabia, of course, but still. Of course, the aforementioned contact was more to the benefit of the West than China up until the XVIIIth or so.

The answer is India.

India -- > Himalayas --> No Rain to Africa --> Sahara expands --> blocking north and south Africa trade, decrease food yield

Is that understandable?

That can't be the only reason the Sahara desert is twice as big now as it was a few thousand years ago. The Himalayas can't move that fast.

There is a mechanism for the desertification of Northern Africa over the past several thousand years but it simply can't be the motion or presence of that mountain range. The time scales aren't even remotely close.

edit - sorry, forgot to comment on the topic itself.

Backwardness in society is still fairly subjective. Backwardness in science is less so, but there is still the matter of the local conditions for industry allowing a society to make use of a given technology or knowledge. Whole continents can't have been backward by default in ancient times. Let's take Bronzeworking and Ironworking as an example.

Iron and coal have to be in the same region (or traded for) to be able to work iron since wood doesn't burn hot enough to allow you to work iron. You would be able to make bronze tools without coal, but iron couldn't be made with any other available fuel. Just because a society used bronze more than iron doesn't define backwardness. You didn't have to be Celtic to have iron tools as these things were traded quite extensively. Even the Romans at their height used bronze as a metal in manufacture in a large part of the empire, just because the materials were still relatively plentiful compared to iron-making materials.

The technology for bronze and ironworking is actually somewhat similar. Heat up the ore, smelt out some of the impurities and work the metal into shape, mainly by striking it with a hammer of some sort. The difference is in the temperature and the time it takes to work into shape. I submit that other technologies, when developed to a more "advanced" state don't necessarily make don't make a nation that doesn't have it backwards.

Considering that inventions came from all over and spread all over the world makes me think that backwardness isn't the issue. I think the differences are more in actually working on, using, and leveraging the advanced technologies available.

That can't be the only reason the Sahara desert is twice as big now as it was a few thousand years ago. The Himalayas can't move that fast.

There is a mechanism for the desertification of Northern Africa over the past several thousand years but it simply can't be the motion or presence of that mountain range. The time scales aren't even remotely close.

Pasates? The prevalent winds depending on your postion to tropics ( like Cancer not tropical climate). Wind blows from Sahara. And few thousand years ago we had somewhat different climate (Ice Age was Rain AGe for Sahara)

Sydhe, Plotinus- I needed some first step to "backwardness"- if I could get agreement that Bushmen were more backwards than Portuguese I could start to differate more stages of "progress". And the migration represented mobility and conflict.

Also, the natural slant our axis has changed a very little bit, messing up the weath patterns, this is a big factor in creating the Saharan Desert.

Why was Africa so backward?
Because it's so narrow.

(GG&S oversimplified to the extreme. ;))

Because it's so narrow.

(GG&S oversimplified to the extreme. ;))

North-south orientation, some people may not think of north-south as up and down automaticaly, you know (:eek: )

And the one part that isn't narrow (and is connected to the rest of the non-narrow world) is getting more and more desertic every year (Sahel region)

Terrible geography, flora and fauna. No local culture ever gained enough momentum to keep civilization going. Geography may have kept regional cultures from feeding off one another and making additional progress. Without a local civilization base there wasn't sufficient underpinnings to support the imported civilization from north Africa, Europe and the Middle East when connections were distant and difficult to maintain.

thay allso had a lack of domesticatable animals..

all thay had whear bison, rhino, elaphants ect..

the world whould be alot difrent if the mighty armys of africa came acrose the med. in ships landing and rideing armored rhinos and elaphants.

even tho u can tame elaphants u cant domestocate them .

Actually, they had cattle.

Elephants can be bred in captivity and really the main reason that they are not considered domesticated is because the male elephants can be dangerous when they are in musht. If they are controlled then (by tying them to a tree until it passes), the males can be used when they are out of musht.

Elephants have a gestation period of more than a year. Very hard to domesticate, even societies that regularly made used of elephants for labour prefers to hunt them down in the wild. African elephants also have a reputation of being wild and unmanageable, witness that Circus elephants almost predominantly uses asian elephants for their shows. Cattle was introduced to Africa, they did not have them initially. I think that I agree with those posters who basically said that Afrians did not developed because of the hostile enviroment, lack of contact and therefore the inability to develope the impetus to advance civilised society, due to this factor. The present violence in Africa is due to them having not iron out all their differences in the past. In most modern societies such wars have already been fought and resolved with ancient weapons. Modern weapons are much more deadly and compounded the violence.

Elephants have a gestation period of more than a year. Very hard to domesticate, even societies that regularly made used of elephants for labour prefers to hunt them down in the wild.

They also take a long time to grow compared to horses and cattle. However, they can be bred in captivity and they're pretty tamable, so I suspect the problems are really patience, expense and musht.

Hippopotamuses and Rhinos, unfortunately, can't be domesticated.

Imagine Rhino mounted knights... That would be so sweet. Although i wonder why the Africans didn't domesticate the wildebeest, they move in huge herds and breed like mad. Could be a source of meat on the hoof, even if they may not be good for tilling the fields.

Imagine Rhino mounted knights... That would be so sweet. Although i wonder why the Africans didn't domesticate the wildebeest, they move in huge herds and breed like mad. Could be a source of meat on the hoof, even if they may not be good for tilling the fields.
They like zebras are extremly flighty and easily spooked. (even the slightest smell of blood would make them go nuts.)

Regarding the domestiation and use of animals:

May I guide you to my previous post #43 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4276620&postcount=43), for some ideas on why many animals were not even thought of as domesticable in the first place? That should certainly be considered alongside any inherent characteristics of these beasts. Not everyone looks at the world in the same way, you know.

-----

Once more, Kill Joy over here notices that no one has even bothered to define "advanced" or "backwards", nor indeed what categories of human and societal development they are talking about.

As a result, this thread reads very poorly as history and anthropology indeed and is telling of this forum's primary reason for being ie. Civ. Jared Diamond's work is once more bestriding the discussion like a colossus, when in fact I am of the belief that his work contains some grave misgivings and simplistic omissions eg. what beliefs people had of their environment for starters.

In fact, much of this thread has connnotations of 19th century European writings on Africa, simply with a 21st century intellectual twist on things. Here we have Diamond replacing Darwin as the great soothsayer. Many of these 19th century writings saw Europeans trying to fit Africans into Darwin's grand Evolutionary scheme of things, yes, as being "backwards" (with a number of definitions). You guys are doing much the same with Diamond's work, using it as an blanket to hide intellectual nudity. It's frankly lazy, dishonest and highly subjective.

I'd like to offer some schools of thought, not necessarily right or agreeable, but worthwhile reading in order to gain an understanding of the development of thinking I speak of above. They are highly relevant to the background of this discussion. I recommend reading up on some of the following (in no particular order):

Primitivism
Romanticism
Claude Levi Strauss
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the noble savage and "amour-propre"
Pablo Picasso
Freud and the subconscious
Exoticism
Orientalism too
and.....
what about some other Social Anthropology???!

Just a though, but Africa never really developed Nation-states. After ancient times, the continent remained many small, nomadic tribes of hunter-gathers who continually engage in tribal warfare. And after the colonial period ended and colonial created nation-states became independent, they reverted bad to the tribal warfare. When you are scrambling for your next meal, you don't have time to study the sciences....

Why this constant belief that Africans existed only in small tribes until Europeans got there? What of Mali, Ethiopia, Meroe, and all the rest? Of course the tribe has always been important to most Africans and continues to be so, but this has always been perfectly compatible with nation states.

Since the end of the colonial period, there has been constant "tribal" warfare going on in Africa. And just how does the "tribal" concept fit into Europe and Asia? France, Germany, Greece, China, Italy and most of the other nation-states (but not all) are each one tribe without all the constant "tribal" warfare. Each political entity was/is stable enough to stand without constant civil war between its sub-groups. The only real exception is the Balkans, and look at the troubles they have had there.

Regarding the domestiation and use of animals:

May I guide you to my previous post #43 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4276620&postcount=43), for some ideas on why many animals were not even thought of as domesticable in the first place? That should certainly be considered alongside any inherent characteristics of these beasts. Not everyone looks at the world in the same way, you know.


So how come they did develop agriculture? And even domesticated new cultures?

Who do you mean by "they"? I'm losing count of the amount of times I've asked you to qualify your statements.

Did you read up on any of those areas and writers I recommended above?

Who do you mean by "they"? I'm losing count of the amount of times I've asked you to qualify your statements.

Did you read up on any of those areas and writers I recommended above?

How about Bantu?

And just how does the "tribal" concept fit into Europe and Asia? France, Germany, Greece, China, Italy and most of the other nation-states (but not all) are each one tribe without all the constant "tribal" warfare. Each political entity was/is stable enough to stand without constant civil war between its sub-groups. How much exactly you know about the dynasties in China and the history of Europe?

Check first the history about the roots of First World War. I remember there was nice post about it in the history forum by Vrylakas, right here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=95423

Partly you are right though. There haven't been tribal warfare recently in many of the countries of Europe. I believe the main reasons have been that they have shared the same religion, there have been enough fertile land for everyone and that the "ethnic cleansing" happened already long ago in history.

You could also see much of the history of late antiquity and the Middle Ages as one of tribal warfare. What, for example, was the Albigensian crusade if not one tribe (French-speaking Catholic northerners) attacking another tribe (Occitan-speaking Cathar southerners)?

Still, I don't see that this is relevant. I didn't say that tribalism is found elsewhere where there are nation states, only that tribalism is not, per se, inconsistent with building a nation state. Certainly I'd agree that the "tribe" is far more important to most African cultures than most European ones. And I'd also agree that this situation can present problems when it comes to nation-building, but it can also offer opportunities. Most of the great African nations and empires formed when one tribe became more powerful and either conquered its neighbours or forced them to accept their overlordship. This meant that a powerful tribe could claim overlordship of a large area surprisingly quickly. As long as they retained their power, the empire functioned and tribute flowed into the imperial coffers. From that perspective, tribalism helps nation-building, because it provides a set of relatively large "building blocks" to make your nation out of (imagine, by contrast, having to create a nation by conquering one village after another, all independently - tribes are larger). But, of course, should the ruling tribe lose power, the lesser tribes would break away relatively quickly. A truly centralised empire was never possible in Africa because of the loyalty everyone felt to their local tribes, and this tendency was in tension with the attempts of various emperors to encourage their own personality cult (the Kanem emperors, for example, were officially so divine that they didn't eat - anyone who caught sight of the food being delivered to the palace risked execution, to prevent the mundane reality becoming known!). When power began to slip from the emperor, it was almost impossible to get it back because the local chiefs would declare independence quickly.

In effect, African empires were federations. We see nothing strange today in having single countries composed of many states; it is not incompatible with nationhood. Many of the problems of modern Africa stem from the fact that the colonial powers failed to recognise the differences between tribes, and lumped different groups together in the same county when there was no "natural" reason to do so. Of course, in pre-colonial times, different tribes often found themselves sharing a country, but that was because there was a powerful central government effectively forcing them to do so. In the absence of this check on the centrifugal tendency of the tribes in post-colonial times, many African countries have effectively fallen apart along tribal lines. Thus it seems to a modern onlooker that tribalism is intrinsically incompatible with nationhood. But I would say that it's not - rather, tribalism is hard to combine with the kind of nationhood that we have seen emerge in much of Africa over the past half-century.

Just a though, but Africa never really developed Nation-states. After ancient times, the continent remained many small, nomadic tribes of hunter-gathers who continually engage in tribal warfare. And after the colonial period ended and colonial created nation-states became independent, they reverted bad to the tribal warfare. When you are scrambling for your next meal, you don't have time to study the sciences....
Hookay...
You've narrowed "Africa" down to most of present day South Africa, the desert and rain forest regions.:scan:;)

Your carachterisation does not hold for the several sultanates of the Sudan (Darfur, Kordofan etc.), the kingdom of Ethiopia, the sultanate of Somalia, the Eastern seaboard with the Swahili trading states (reaching inland, where states like Bunyoro, Monbuttu, Waganda, the Azande federation were encountered by Europeans, and liquidated).

It's also off the mark for all of west Africa (with the exception of the deepest rain forest areas perhaps), where the really powerful African states arose, as a combination of Muslim sultanates (the libraries of Timbuctu etc.) and more traditional monarchies (rainmaking kings) states.

And moving down the coast there used to be large and powerful states like Kongo and Angola. Or "Great Zimbabwe" ("Monomotapa"?) in the inland.

Africa was full of more or less well defined political entities. It just pleased Europeans to disregard them. Most of all in west Africa, where the bulk of the slaves were picked up.
That's where the slavers found the right combination of mature agricultural societies with a decent population density, coupled with considerable administrative skill, state power, and of course most important of all, the right kind of political rivalries that could be exploited.

And then the Europeans plum denied the were factors that made slavery a successful venture in west Africa, as it didn't fit the more comforting idea that somehow these people were so dense they could be regarded as "natural slaves".

West Africa = most powerful African states for the longest time = the most "primitive" Africans, the "true Negro race" to 19th c. Europeans. Go figure!:crazyeye:

I don't like the title of this thread...

Europe - Tribes had a long history there. They aren't normally called tribes though. Serbs, Basques, Welch, Scots, Irish, Sicilians... and on and on, have unique cultural and regional identities bound by family and ancestry. The past fifty years of very relative peace can't erase conflict between nations and peoples all across Europe before then.

There were nations everywhere from what I can see, even all throughout Africa. It took the British until deep into the 1900s to destroy the political federation/kingdom they called the Zulu. That was tribe AND a nation it appears. Because they didn't have guns, they didn't really field an army of soldiers against the British in a last ditch effort to protect what was left of their homeland? No guns = backwards? Few nations had a truly industrial economy before the past couple hundred years...

Having an economic and political dominance over all of your neighbors could make you think they were backward. Even most of Europe paled in comparison to England for the vast majority of industrially machined goods in the time of Adam Smith. Most of the world was still more-or-less building things by hand or restricted by guild, when England was, seemingly, automating and industrializing beyond all imagination. Noting the appalling lack of a real industry in France, considered to be the next most powerful nation in the world compared to Britain at the time, Adam Smith, according to the book "The Wealth of Nations" (1776), seemed to project the view that the rest of Europe - nay, the rest of the WORLD - was "backwards" in much the same way this post is talking about Africa. And this was before the rise of the so-called Nation State. See Napoleon (1709s-1810s) bureaucracy and conscription for more into the early beginnings of that development.

Back to the Zulu "tribe". Compared to her neighbors, she was certainly not backward. Able to field a large army for conquest campaigns, dominant for a time in a geographical region, economic hegemony... Next to the British, there was no competition, but next to every one else in the area...?

Eventually, Europe did alot of catching up, North America devloped from seemingly out of nowhere, and now Asia is finally doing the same.

Why was the rest of Europe so backward with all of the same access to technologies as England? Why was Asia so backward with all of those forever-fabled nations of gold and spice? Why was North America so backward but oh so rich in resources? Nobody asks those questions anymore...

Back to the Zulu "tribe". Compared to her neighbors, she was certainly not backward. Able to field a large army for conquest campaigns, dominant for a time in a geographical region, economic hegemony... Next to the British, there was no competition, but next to every one else in the area...?
Well, the Swazi were perhaps even more successful. There's even a traditional Swazi saying which runs something like this:

"Let the Boer and the Zulu fight with clubs, while the British and the Swazi discuss politics.":lol:

Some of the African countries seem pretty stable. Gabon, Cameroon, Botswana, Namibia (since independence), Mali (despite it's being extremely poor) and South Africa. Mozambique seems to be doing okay these days. For quite a while, they had an insurgency sponsored by the apartheid govenment of South Africa.