Why did the Africans not develop?

[thestonesfan]

Maybe it's something as simple as population density.

Maybe there was TOO MUCH land, animals, and the like. Every tribe always had what it needed.

 

[Heffalump]

Key factors, as summarized from the Pulitzer Prize winning 'Guns, Germs and Steel'. (A great read for anyone interested in this topic)

*Lack of domesticable animals
*Fewer domesticable plants than Eurasia slowed the growth of food production (i.e. farming)
*Geography. The north-south axis of Africa slowed the migration of domesticable crops due to differing climate patterns and temperatures.
*Geography. Even when cattle and horse made it to Africa they could not survive in the regions beyond equatorial Africa due to the tsete fly, which evidently carries infections lethal to them.
*Geograpy. The Sahara acted as a barrier, slowing the spread of ideas and knowledge from the north

 

[Stapel]

Originally posted by Heffalump
Key factors, as summarized from the Pulitzer Prize winning 'Guns, Germs and Steel'. (A great read for anyone interested in this topic)

*Lack of domesticable animals
*Fewer domesticable plants than Eurasia slowed the growth of food production (i.e. farming)
*Geography. The north-south axis of Africa slowed the migration of domesticable crops due to differing climate patterns and temperatures.
*Geography. Even when cattle and horse made it to Africa they could not survive in the regions beyond equatorial Africa due to the tsete fly, which evidently carries infections lethal to them.
*Geograpy. The Sahara acted as a barrier, slowing the spread of ideas and knowledge from the north

And none of it explains why Africans (in general, as a group) do poor anywhere in the world.

 

[Ribannah]

Try (1) 'because their parents were poor' or (2) 'because they are kept poor by people who won't give them a chance because they think African races are inferior'.

 

[allhailIndia]

Originally posted by Heffalump
Blaming colonialism is too simple, and much too recent.

You need only ask yourself the following question: why wasn't it the Africans doing the colonizing instead of the Europeans? Why didn't Africans land on European shores and stake territorial claims for themselves?

Colonialism was merely a sympton of African weakness vis-a-vis Europe.

I think the truths lay much further back, and I think some of the things touched on earlier (climate, geography, animals available for domestication) all played a role.

Er...no

The concept of nationalism developed much earlier in Europe than anywhere else that's why the Europeans were tje colonizers everywhere.

 

[Heffalump]

The concept of nationalism developed much earlier in Europe than anywhere else that's why the Europeans were tje colonizers everywhere.

Europe's ability to enrich itself through the attainment of colonies was merely a reflection of the imbalances between it and Africa. Or for that matter, between it and much of the rest of the world.

Your argument is short-sighted because it ignores what put Europeans in the position to be the colonizers, and Africa in the position to be colonized.

Europe was able to succeed in colonizing Africa because it had the guns, swords and horses which made it's soldiers an overwhelming force on the battlefield. And it had the ships to move these forces across oceans.

To discover the roots of the imbalances between Africa and Europe you need to consider the factors that put Europe in this position of superiority.