Why has Africa always remained primitive ?

[Aeolus]

Also in "how to make and almond"

[PainRack]

thank you

[Aeolus]

thank you

No prob. It's a facinating book. I don't know if I completely agree with it but I have never heard a better explaination for why certain societys developed faster than others.

[Lord Zentei]

Yes, there is a reason. Fewer suitable crops and animals for domestication than anywhere else short of Australia.

Yet the Bantu did it, and once that happenned, they seemed to be catching up fairly quickly.

But why 4,000 years ago and not earlier? Fire was discovered, in Africa, half a million years ago after all.

Way to neglect to adress Broomstick's other points. For instance: the Bantu discovered agriculture on their own, the Europeans imported it. Hence, the Bantu are presumably more genetically capable than the Europeans.

[PainRack]

No prob. It's a facinating book. I don't know if I completely agree with it but I have never heard a better explaination for why certain societys developed faster than others.

Have you read his second book? It talks about environmental changes and how it toppled civilisations, and moves on from there to talk about environmental threats facing our modern world now. It was quite an atonishing read, discovering about Montana and the mining baron mentality as well as how desertification and salt residue in Australia irrigration system is slowly destroying her fertile soil.

The follow up discussions at the ending chapters about how companies could and were more environmentally friendly, and even benefited from it was similarly enlightening.

While I disagree as to the immediacy of the threat Diamond appears to protray, its a good read and a much better call for environmental awareness than other books and pamphlets.

[Aeolus]

No prob. It's a facinating book. I don't know if I completely agree with it but I have never heard a better explaination for why certain societys developed faster than others.

Have you read his second book? It talks about environmental changes and how it toppled civilisations, and moves on from there to talk about environmental threats facing our modern world now. It was quite an atonishing read, discovering about Montana and the mining baron mentality as well as how desertification and salt residue in Australia irrigration system is slowly destroying her fertile soil.

The follow up discussions at the ending chapters about how companies could and were more environmentally friendly, and even benefited from it was similarly enlightening.

While I disagree as to the immediacy of the threat Diamond appears to protray, its a good read and a much better call for environmental awareness than other books and pamphlets.

Not yet. I have a huge que of books to get though first. I am reading Nine Nations of North America at the moment. Then I have about 5 others on my shelf I have been meaning to read.

[Vicious]

In regards to why Africa, and to a lesser extent the Americas, failed to develop as quickly as Eurasia, Diamond makes the point in Guns, Germs and Steel: it's about axis'. Specifically in regards to agriculture, climates tend to follow latitudinal lines (obviously barring other factors, such as terrain). Thus, a crop which does well in Southern Europe will probably do well in most of the regions found along that latitude, with some overlap north/south. This is why Europe (barring the colder north), the Middle East, and Asia can all generally grow the same crops. Africa is the opposite. Northen Africa, in large part, was once a Mediterranean (arguably the ideal growing climate - short, wet winters and long, warm summers) climate, enabling it to benefit from the vast array of crops found in the Fertile Crescent. Likewise, the southern tip of Africa is Mediterranean in climate and would likewise have benefited from the Fertile Crescent basket, but the rest of Africa is Tropical, sub-Tropical or desert, and these prevented the passing of Fertile Crescent crops to South Africa, leaving them to develop agriculture with the miniscule crops available to them.

In addition, Europe, North Africa and the Middle East were all able to engage in an ongoing exchange of ideas with one another leading to scientific innovation, whereas communication between North Africa and South Africa was hampered by the Sahara desert. This allowed scientific development to proceed at a vastly accelerated pace in Eurasia while sub-Saharan Africa took far longer to develop.

Since agriculture and the exchange of ideas are absolute prerequisites for scientific and cultural development above a certain level, Eurasia's ability to sustain far larger populations of people not engaged in food production coupled with numerous advanced civilizations allowed it outstrip all the other continents in terms of development.