Spare me, the most widely subscribed theory of history is that Europeans made Africa poor and prevented them from developing by extracting their natural resource wealth through colonialism. It is entirely false and heavily supported by enormous efforts of academic bias, rhetorical warfare, and straight up making shit up.
As I referenced earlier, check out Wittfogel and the hydraulic empires. It's a great read.
European colonialism in Africa is largely a 19th century phenomenon and lasted for less than a hundred years. Extractive colonialism was, no doubt, damaging. That does nothing to explain the thousands of years of pre-European contact history.
There are zero domesticatable species in Africa.
Strong disagree.
Egypt, Mesopatamia, and the Indus valley were explicitly hospitable at the time of their development, and had extremely regular river flows which made civilization possible.
You think the river flows of the Nile, Tigris, Euphrates, Indus, etc., were reliable and regular? You just have to check out the pantheon of ancient Egyptian and Sumerian gods to get an idea of just how regular the waters were. Or, you know, the Noah myth... (Gilgamesh)
Your argument is just not grounded in reality.
Rome wouldn't exist, with or without sewage and drainage, with Malaria being as prevalent and perpetual as it is in Africa.
Another argument with no grounding in reality. Malaria is or was endemic in the Mediterranean basin, in South America, in India, in Southeast Asia, in parts of China, etc. Malaria was a major issue in ancient Rome, for instance. Why is it uniquely only sub-Saharan African peoples who were so impacted by malaria?
Plus, your arguments make the false assumption that all of sub-Saharan Africa is of a similar clime. This is false. South Africa (and much of southern Africa more generally, for instance), is totally different.
As I referenced earlier, check out Wittfogel and the hydraulic empires. It's a great read.
European colonialism in Africa is largely a 19th century phenomenon and lasted for less than a hundred years. Extractive colonialism was, no doubt, damaging. That does nothing to explain the thousands of years of pre-European contact history.
Strong disagree.
You think the river flows of the Nile, Tigris, Euphrates, Indus, etc., were reliable and regular? You just have to check out the pantheon of ancient Egyptian and Sumerian gods to get an idea of just how regular the waters were. Or, you know, the Noah myth... (Gilgamesh)
Your argument is just not grounded in reality.
Another argument with no grounding in reality. Malaria is or was endemic in the Mediterranean basin, in South America, in India, in Southeast Asia, in parts of China, etc. Malaria was a major issue in ancient Rome, for instance. Why is it uniquely only sub-Saharan African peoples who were so impacted by malaria?
Plus, your arguments make the false assumption that all of sub-Saharan Africa is of a similar clime. This is false. South Africa (and much of southern Africa more generally, for instance), is totally different.