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<SPB3@PSUVM.PSU.EDU> ************************************** Editor's Note: Discessions over the last few weeks about Africa's comparative state of economic and political development have appeared under several subject headings. Beiginning with today's messages, we will try to consolidate them under the subject, "Africa in 1500" fully recognizing the breadth of contributions under this rubric. mep ************************************** I have hesitated to enter these discussions about the relative stages of development of Africa and Europe, but the latest postings seem worth answer. One element of the discussion that bothered me from the start was the creation of monolithic concepts: Europe, Africa... I find both geographic regions a great deal of diversity compounded by variable history. The horizons of Europe in the twelfth century are not those of the sixteenth nor those of the twentieth, and the same goes for Africa. Lists such as that posted very early on by Gloria Emeagwali seem to be dangerous and deceptive in their homogeneization of the groups involved. Another delicate dimension, of course, involves the politics of the question. I wonder if we could get a clearer, and less polemic, answer if we phrased the comparison somewhat differently: what if we compared the high points of African material civilization with those of India for 1500 or 1600? I would side with Ralph Austen in saying that transportation infrastructure and, I would add, a written information base, are crucial elements for 'development' in the comparative sense. And this is also why I think we should distinguish between our Europes and our Africas. The 'developed' part of Europe in the 12th century was that region centered on the Mediterranean, and what made it developed was the free exchange of goods and ideas across the waters, through a multiplicity of middlemen. At the same time, the Indian Ocean clearly provided the link for a vigorous and rich economic system. By contrast, the Sahara may not have been so great an obstacle for ideas, but it certainly impeded the flow of bulk commodities. By 1500, I think one could argue that the 'central' basin was no longer either the Mediterranean or the Indian Ocean, but the trading networks developing out of northern Europe which began linking the entire world. The question of American gold is in some sense an irrelevancy; the system being transplanted out of Spain was an artificially prolonged feudal system rather than the productive systems that had developed north of the Pyrenees (and not everywhere there). Nor would one include Russia in this system; the 'modernization' of Russia is a matter of the recent historical record. Another factor would be the question of available power sources. People have mentioned the fertility of tropical soils, which is/can be low. They have not mentioned the conspicuous absence of draft animals throughout much of tropical Africa, an absence due to the tse-tse fly and which made man-power, in the most fundamental sense, the work-unit for much of the continent. Other environmental non-assets would include a wide array of interesting diseases and the lack of water-reservoirs such as the Alps or the Himalayas which do so much to regularize agriculture elsewhere in the world. In sum, I do think the evidence suggests that by and large most of Africa was less developed than Western Europe in 1500, if only because much of the continent was isolated from the larger world community. The question of transportation continues to plague much of rural Africa, and it would be dishonest not to recognize the fact. And whatever one's view of the oral tradition, the fact remains that for practical record-keeping writing is very useful.
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