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Uh; please remember that there are "2" Africas; 1 is Egypt to Algeria and their friends and the other is Nigeria to South Africa. VERY different cultures even before white people took over all of Africa.
Word is what set Egypt apart from the rest way back in the day was the Nile River. The rest Africa ain't known for having rivers that can be used for large boats, Europe, the US, Canada as well as parts of Asia do.
They sail boats down the Niger. The entire length of the river may not be navigable, but vast tracks of it are.
Thanks! I've never heard of the Niger River, just the Nile.
If you watch Skip Gates' special on his trip to West Africa (its on youtube) he takes a cruise down the Niger.
The idea of the non-navigable rivers was popularized by GUNS, GERMS,AND STEEL, which put forward a lot of bogus ideas on why Africa did not develop as quickly as some regions. To my thinking, the twin reasons were desertification and malaria, both of which were mentioned. But Jared Diamond seemed to feel some psychological need to throw out a whole grab bag of ideas, most of which were nonsense.
1) Non- navigable rivers. The Niger, and I am sure several other rivers, are at least partially navigable.
2) Lack of good port coastline retarding African trade. The problem is, the Somalis have an extremely ancient maritime tradition, and the Swahili are famously traders. So much for that.
3) Lack of domesticable animals/ the African auroch and the zebra are not domesticable. The problem is that the zebra HAS BEEN DOMESTICATED (and saddled) in limited numbers by European enthusiasts, and there is no scientific evidence that the African auroch is any less domesticable than the European or Indian.
4) Lack of domesticable plants meant that a food package had to be imported. Problem is that African wild rice and African pearl millet could provide exactly the kind of carbohydrate and protein nutrition package that is optimal, and there were any number of other supplementary food stuffs.
5) The North-South gradient of Africa makes it difficult for technologies and ideas to travel. The problem is that this underestimates the topological and climate difficulties of continents with east-west gradients. Does Diamond really think that the Gobi desert or the Himalayan mountains are not a barrier to ideas?
And so on and so on. It is a terrific book and in my collection, but take it with a grain of salt.
Last edited by cachibatches; 02-03-2015 at 04:35 AM..
Uh; please remember that there are "2" Africas; 1 is Egypt to Algeria and their friends and the other is Nigeria to South Africa. VERY different cultures even before white people took over all of Africa.
Word is what set Egypt apart from the rest way back in the day was the Nile River. The rest Africa ain't known for having rivers that can be used for large boats, Europe, the US, Canada as well as parts of Asia do.
That's nonsense.
Egyptian civilization traveled down into East Africa on the Nile in antiquity into what is now the Sudan. Later, the Nile as well as the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean brought North African, Arabian, and Indian culture into the Sudan, the Horn of Africa, and further south into what are the coastal areas of Kenya and Tanzania. The interactions between East Africa and India have largely been ignored by Euro-centric historians and other writers.
There were also trade and cultural ties between Egyptian/Mediterranean civilizations and west African civilization in the Niger River area until the spread of the Sahara Desert (which is apparently a relatively recent phenomenon) more or less stopped. Sub-saharan was essentially cut off from most contact with the cultural center of the world, the Mediterranean, before the rise of the Roman Empire by the Sahara, and West African civilizations essentially developed in isolation.
Furthermore, the two great pre-Columbian civilizations in the Americas, the Aztecs in Mexico and the Incas in Peru, did not develop along any navigable rivers. In fact, what great Native American "civilizations" at all developed along any navigable rivers in the Americas? The Iroquois were a powerful confederacy, but they were not a particularly sophisticated culture, especially technologically, like the Europeans.
Like Africa, the Americas were isolated from the culture and learning that developed in the Levant, spread eastward into India and China and westward into the Mediterranean. Like Africa, the peoples of the Americas were politically and technologically backward compared to the Europeans they encountered because of that isolation. This also happened in Australia. The native peoples in all these places were "backward" because they had to invent all their own institutions and technology rather than speeding up the process by borrowing from somebody who came with the idea first. The Greeks and the Chinese did NOT invent writing; they learned about it from people who came from the Fertile Crescent either through trade or war. They spread it to their neighbors the same way.
By that I mean this. If a frog had wheels, it wouldn't need to jump from place to place. If a bluebird was red, it'd be a redbird.
Yep. If world history had been Africa-centric, what we were taught in school would have been different. For that matter, if world history had been Native-America-centric...
We can speculate all we want about woulda/coulda/shoulda/mighta-been, but once the alarm-clock goes off (figuratively speaking) we still have to wake up and deal with the world as it is.
Regards,
-- Nighteyes (Mississippi Choctaw)
PS: After writing this I realized that it may sound flippant and dismissive, and that's not what I intended. So, let me try another tack.
IF the Five Civilized Tribes (Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Creek, Seminole) had listened to and followed Tecumseh (a Shawnee) back in the early Nineteenth Century, American history might well have taken an entirely different path. 21st-century America might look quite different than it does today.
But they didn't, and no amount of what-ifs, yes-buts, and well-maybes can change our 21st-Century reality...
Last edited by Nighteyes; 02-03-2015 at 01:24 PM..
Egyptian civilization traveled down into East Africa on the Nile in antiquity into what is now the Sudan. .
You are actually agreeing with him here. The Nile was the source of cultural diffusion, and other parts of Africa lacked that means. I have already let him know that the Niger and other African rivers are partially navigable, but in citing the Nile as the source of Egyptian knowledge reaching Sudan, you are saying the same thing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Linda_d
Later, the Nile as well as the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean brought North African, Arabian, and Indian culture into the Sudan, the Horn of Africa, and further south into what are the coastal areas of Kenya and Tanzania.
You are conflating a couple of different things there. Egypt notoriously have very little cultural influence outside of Sudan. Certainly the African blue water maritime tradition brought influences from outside, but they don't have anything to do with Egypt.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Linda_d
The interactions between East Africa and India have largely been ignored by Euro-centric historians and other writers.
No they have not, it is just difficult to find sources to elaborate about them since the Africans themselves did very little writing on the subject.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Linda_d
There were also trade and cultural ties between Egyptian/Mediterranean civilizations
Greece learned architecture and art from Egypt, but most of the outside cultural influence came from the Near east during the "Orientalizing period." The Greeks certainly admired Egypt to no end.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Linda_d
and west African civilization in the Niger River area until the spread of the Sahara Desert (which is apparently a relatively recent phenomenon) more or less stopped.
Three is almost no evidence for this what-so-ever. The civilizations that were developing around the Niger river at the time, the Nok, Tichitt, Djenne-Djenno, don't appear to have anything to do with Egypt. They largely spoke a different language group entirely, did not appear to have writing, developed cities rather than monumental architecture, did not worship Egyptian gods, etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Linda_d
Sub-saharan was essentially cut off from most contact with the cultural center of the world, the Mediterranean, before the rise of the Roman Empire by the Sahara, and West African civilizations essentially developed in isolation.
Kind of hard to follow as you said the opposite in your last sentence. I think where you are going wrong here is that there was never a time when Egypt and West Africa were in contact, because the Sahara desert expanded much earlier than you believe. In fact, the Sahara desert created Egypt by forcing different peoples to the Nile river valley.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Linda_d
Furthermore, the two great pre-Columbian civilizations in the Americas, the Aztecs in Mexico and the Incas in Peru,
There were a lot more great people than that, and these are only the two last. In Mexico there is the Olmec, the Mayan, the Teotihuatec, the Toltec as well as Aztec contemporaries such as the Miztec, the Zapotec, the Tlaxcallans, the Cholulans, the Purepecha...
In Peru there was the Moche, the Chimu, Chavin, Tihaunaco, Wari, Nazca, ChachiPoya. etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Linda_d
did not develop along any navigable rivers.
Correct. And in Peru, strangely, the Moche civilization developed in a desert comparable to the Sahara.
The thing here is, urbanization in the Americas is so different that it is studied as an exception. Our friend is correct that Rivers were the impetuous to most ancient civilization, including the Nile, Niger, Indus, Fertile crescent, and, as we now know, the Danube.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Linda_d
In fact, what great Native American "civilizations" at all developed along any navigable rivers in the Americas? The Iroquois were a powerful confederacy, but they were not a particularly sophisticated culture, especially technologically, like the Europeans.
See above. The America's were a very different place and historians are ware of this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Linda_d
Like Africa, the Americas were isolated from the culture and learning that developed in the Levant, spread eastward into India and China and westward into the Mediterranean. Like Africa, the peoples of the Americas were politically and technologically backward compared to the Europeans they encountered because of that isolation.
Most of the problem in the Americas came from the lack of draft animals. So much ancient technology comes from animal husbandry, and the Americans, which had only the llama in Peru which was unsuitable to being yoked, did not have that technological spur.
That being said, it may be a bit harsh to call the Africans or the Americans "backward." Seen in their own context, they each developed extremely impressive civilizations.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Linda_d
This also happened in Australia. The native peoples in all these places were "backward" because they had to invent all their own institutions and technology rather than speeding up the process by borrowing from somebody who came with the idea first.
True but overstated. I believe that there were some trade contacts. I am not an Australian expert, by any means.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Linda_d
The Greeks and the Chinese did NOT invent writing; they learned about it from people who came from the Fertile Crescent either through trade or war. They spread it to their neighbors the same way.
Both the "Greeks" and Chinese invented several types of writing, although I put Greek in quotation marks because some of these would have been Old European Greeks, what are sometimes called the Pelasgians.
We discuss the 2 World Wars, the American Revolution, the Renaissance, the Medieval, the Roman Empire, etc. extensively, and I suspect this is because of the Europe and North America-centric views fostered by the economic and cultural dominance of Europe and North America. Relatively, the history of Africa is pretty much ignored and forgotten. Everyone knows Hitler, but rarely has one heard of King Leopold II. How would we have learned world history differently, content-wise, if we had instead adopted an Africa-centric view?
African countries rarely directly impacted things out of Africa for the last 1000+ years.
Meaning that Lybia didn't help us fight off the British during the revolution.
Nigeria didn't invade Europe for oil and other resouces.
Mali didn't colonize China.
I guess I'm not following the point.
If they talked about europe colonzing the US and us rebelling that's somehow euro centric but if we talk about North Africa and Frech colonizing and rebelling....we could accuse that African centric view of really being Euro-centric.
Other than the slave trade and a small portion of WW2, Africa and the US haven't crossed paths much in world history.
In fact, what great Native American "civilizations" at all developed along any navigable rivers in the Americas?
Linda_d,
It appears you may not be aware of the Cahokian civilization which, by-the-way, was spread all up and down the Mississippi River. Unless the facts have changed considerably, the Mississippi River is the fourth-longest river in the world. It was, and IS, one of the most-navigable rivers worldwide...
Regards,
-- Nighteyes (Mississippi Choctaw, one of the descendant groups of the Cahokian civilization)
PS: Speaking only for myself, I find your typing of the term civilizations in quotation-marks to be simultaneously dismissive and rather arrogant. It is true that my ancestors' civilization was not exactly like those found in Europe and the Middle East, but by any definition it was still a civilization. And contrary to what has been so-glibly (and wrongly) reported by European researchers, my ancestors did have a fairly sophisticated written (and graphic) language, and a complex system of mathematics.
NOT LIKE YOURS? Neither were those of the Chinese or Japanese. So, and with all due respect, TOO DANGED BAD.
Last edited by Nighteyes; 02-03-2015 at 03:36 PM..
One point I'd like to argue is this: historiography isn't "Euro-centric" in itself, European and American historiography are Western-centric.
If from one point of view it's true that most people know little to nothing about History of Africa, it's also true that history of Africa is a small part of Western historiography because African civilisations actually did little to influence it.
This doesn't mean that the several great empire that ensued one after each other were unimportant or insignificant, it means that the modern world was and is shaped by the Western civilisation.
By the way, I talked with many Asians and 90% of them didn't even know what the Roman Empire was.
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