Class notes
Week 3 Notes
- Course
- HIST 1600 (HIST1600)
- Institution
- Fordham University
Provide an in-depth summary of 40+ pages of assigned reading with main topics from each section of the book.
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xn+1Basic Geography: climate, soil, health:
1. How do Africa’s landforms and climate affect economic development today?
2. What natural resources might Africa exploit more profitably?
3. What role has the Great Rift Valley played in African history?
Grosz-Ngate(7-31):
The Idea of Africa:
●
● Places are ideas
○ Africa is a continent and product of human imagination
● Africa took shape after the breakup of Pangaea(180 million years ago)
● Early Africa
○ Most people didn’t know the bounds of Africa, hard to imagine as a
whole)
○ One story from Greek historian Herodotus
■ 5th century BCE
■ Report of sea journey by Phoenicians organized by King Necho II
of Egypt
■ Some people were able to learn entire landmass after journey
■ Knowledge died with them
● Didn’t lead to mapping
● Roman Empire
○ During punic wars of 2nd century BCE
○ Roman empire expanded to much of Africa’s northern regions
○ Cultural/economic ties between rome and African provinces were strong
○ Name “Africa” dates back to this time
■ Comes from
Afer”
■ Phonecian language for the name of the region around Carthage
● Africa linked to rest of the world for at least last two thousand years
○ Roman coins and artifacts found in Africa
○ Early as 7th century CE, persian and arab traders had outposts along
Africa’s Indian Ocean coast
, ○ 14th century voyages of imperial chinese trading
■ Silk
■ Porcelain
○ Christian kingdom of Ethiopia exchanged emissaries with courts of
Europe
■ Example: Abu Abdullah Huhammad Ibn Battuta(“Ibn Battuta”)
■ Moroccan adventurer
■ Voyaged all across northern third of Africa
■ Reported discoveries
○ Helped to create partial geography of Africa
■ Despite various voyages and information, the transmittal of
information fell to European mapmakers
● Description as geographic totality fell to Europeans
● Accurate and inaccurate descriptions spread around the
world as European power increased
● 16th and 17th centuries
○ Europeans defined Africans as poor, uneducated, technologically
unsophisticated, underdeveloped and non-christian
○ Standard of living in Europe was rising at the time
○ Narrative came following the development of the trans-Atlantic slave
trade
● 1500s to 1800s
○ Millions of Africans transported to work in European colonies in the new
world
○ Able to pull this off by convincing themselves that Africa was populated
by people who did not warrant the concern one might have for others
○ After slave trade increased, idea spread around Europe that Fricans were
not part of common humanity
■ Created racist assumptions of African inferiority
○ Roots of anti-African racism rise as a result of the slave trade
■ Ideas became embedded and lasted longer than the slave trade
● Europe created oppositional qualities to Africa
○ White vs black
○ Good vs bad
○ Christian vs immoral
○ Sophisticated vs primitive
● Slave trade created continental perspective
○ Enslaved people came from Africa as a whole, not specified
■ Familial precise roots were lost
■ Thought of African origin
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