One of my main interests is understanding why africa fell behind the rest of the world. You have people blame colonalism and how it underdeveloped Africa.
But one thing you often won't see anybody talk about clearly how big the Gap was befofe colonalism and how far back it went.
By the year 1500 a.d almost anywhere you went in Eurasia ( asia, middle east, Europe) every state/kingdom had
1) a minted currency of coins
2) a strong tradition of writing in a local language about non religious stuff
3) administration with archives where documents in the local language are stored
4) wheel technology
They had all of these for multiple centuries by the 1500s and there was not a single state in all of subsharan africa that had all of these . Even 300 years later right before colonization there still wasn't a single state/kingdom in Subsharan africa that had all of these. You won't find anybody who says this clearly. Since it's kind of weird to talk about big this gap was. I think it's good in way people don't talk too much about this .
I'll end with one final statsic. If you were transported to the year 1550 . You wouldn't be able to find 100 books written in any african lanaguge. While there were millions of books in europe in non latin european lanaguge .
But one thing you often won't see anybody talk about clearly how big the Gap was befofe colonalism and how far back it went.
By the year 1500 a.d almost anywhere you went in Eurasia ( asia, middle east, Europe) every state/kingdom had
1) a minted currency of coins
2) a strong tradition of writing in a local language about non religious stuff
3) administration with archives where documents in the local language are stored
4) wheel technology
They had all of these for multiple centuries by the 1500s and there was not a single state in all of subsharan africa that had all of these . Even 300 years later right before colonization there still wasn't a single state/kingdom in Subsharan africa that had all of these. You won't find anybody who says this clearly. Since it's kind of weird to talk about big this gap was. I think it's good in way people don't talk too much about this .
I'll end with one final statsic. If you were transported to the year 1550 . You wouldn't be able to find 100 books written in any african lanaguge. While there were millions of books in europe in non latin european lanaguge .
