UPDATE: Economics Explained replied! See their comment here: x.com/somas_academy/status/1792257264377614656 Citations: [1] McDougall, E. Ann. Review of Research in Saharan History, by James L. A. Webb Jr. The Journal of African History 39, no. 3 (1998): 467-80. www.jstor.org/stable/183363 [2] Fenn, Thomas R. “Contacts Between West Africa and Roman North Africa: Archaeometallurgical Results from Kissi, Northeastern Burkina Faso.” Crossroads / Carrefour Sahel. Cultural and Technological Developments in First Millennium BC / AD West Africa. Développements Culturels Et Téchnologiques Pendant Le Premier Millénaire BC / AD Dans l'Afrique De l'Ouest, 2009. [3] Cooper, Julien. (2012). Reconsidering the Location of Yam. Bulletin of Latin American Research. 48. www.researchgate.net/publication/334208155_Reconsidering_the_Location_of_Yam [4] Singleton, Brent D. “African Bibliophiles: Books and Libraries in Medieval Timbuktu.” Libraries & Culture 39, no. 1 (2004): 1-12. www.jstor.org/stable/25549150. [5] Samuel, Isaac. “The Colonial Myth of ‘sub-Saharan Africa’ in Medieval Islamic Geography: The View from Egypt and Bornu.” The colonial myth of “Sub-Saharan Africa” in medieval Islamic geography: the view from Egypt and Bornu., February 11, 2024. www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-colonial-myth-of-sub-saharan?publication_id=448231&post_id=141551376&isFreemail=true&r=2rxwd9&L. [6] Levi, Janice R. “Beyond the Saharan Cloak: Uncovering Jewish Identity from Southern Morocco and throughout the Sahara.” Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies 39, no. 2 (2016). doi.org/10.5070/f7392031104. [7] Cartwright, Mark. "Swahili Coast." World History Encyclopedia. Last modified April 01, 2019. www.worldhistory.org/Swahili_Coast/. [8] Haour, A., Moffett, A. Global Connections and Connected Communities in the African Past: Stories from Cowrie Shells. Afr Archaeol Rev 40, 545-553 (2023). doi.org/10.1007/s10437-023-09546-5 [9] Glémin, Sylvain, and Thomas Bataillon. “A Comparative View of the Evolution of Grasses under Domestication.” New Phytologist 183, no. 2 (June 9, 2009): 273-90. doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8137.2009.02884.x. ; Tadele, E., Hibistu, T. Empirical review on the use dynamics and economics of teff in Ethiopia. Agric & Food Secur 10, 40 (2021). doi.org/10.1186/s40066-021-00329-2 [10] Scarcelli, Nora, Philippe Cubry, Roland Akakpo, Anne-Céline Thuillet, Jude Obidiegwu, Mohamed N. Baco, Emmanuel Otoo, et al. “Yam Genomics Supports West Africa as a Major Cradle of Crop Domestication.” Science Advances 5, no. 5 (May 3, 2019). doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaw1947. ; D’Andrea, A. Catherine, Amanda L. Logan, and Derek J. Watson. “Oil Palm and Prehistoric Subsistence in Tropical West Africa.” Journal of African Archaeology 4, no. 2 (2006): 195-222. www.jstor.org/stable/43135404. [11] Fuller, Dorian & Denham, Tim & Arroyo-Kalin, Manuel & Lucas, Leilani & Stevens, Chris & Qin, Ling & Allaby, Robin & Purugganan, Michael. (2014). Convergent evolution and parallelism in plant domestication revealed by an expanding archaeological record. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 111. 10.1073/pnas.1308937110.; News Staff. “Earliest Evidence of Domesticated Sorghum Discovered.” Sci.News: Breaking Science News, September 28, 2017. www.sci.news/archaeology/earliest-evidence-domesticated-sorghum-05271.html. ; Dunham, Will. Genome study reveals prehistoric Ethiopian origins of Coffee | Reuters. www.reuters.com/science/genome-study-reveals-prehistoric-ethiopian-origins-coffee-2024-04-16/. [12] Havinden, M. A. “The History of Crop Cultivation in West Africa: A Bibliographical Guide.” The Economic History Review 23, no. 3 (1970): 532-55. doi.org/10.2307/2594622. (Note: This is an older source, and its content is outdated; it discusses a debate between several hypotheses on the origins of African agriculture which has since been settled) [13] Soukopova, Jitka. “Prehistoric Colonization of the Central Sahara: Hunters versus Herders and the Evidence from the Rock Art.” Expression, 2020. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002995. [14] Crombé, P., Aluwé, K., Boudin, M. et al. New evidence on the earliest domesticated animals and possible small-scale husbandry in Atlantic NW Europe. Sci Rep 10, 20083 (2020). doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-77002-4 [15] Kimura, Birgitta, Fiona B. Marshall, Shanyuan Chen, Sónia Rosenbom, Patricia D. Moehlman, Noreen Tuross, Richard C. Sabin, et al. “Ancient DNA from Nubian and Somali Wild Ass Provides Insights into Donkey Ancestry and Domestication.” Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 278, no. 1702 (July 28, 2010): 50-57. doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2010.0708. [16] Sadr, Karim. “Livestock First Reached Southern Africa in Two Separate Events.” PloS one vol. 10,8 e0134215. 21 Aug. 2015, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0134215 ; Marshall, Fiona & Hildebrand, Elisabeth. (2002). Cattle Before Crops: The Beginnings of Food Production in Africa. Journal of World Prehistory. 16. 99-143. 10.1023/A:1019954903395. [17] Law, Robin. (1980). Wheeled transport in pre-colonial West Africa. Africa, 50(03), 249-262. doi:10.2307/1159117 [18] Chandler, Graham. “Why Reinvent the Wheel?” AramcoWorld, 2017. www.aramcoworld.com/Articles/July-2017/Why-Reinvent-the-Wheel. [19] Samuel, Isaac. “Roads and Wheeled Transport in African History.” African History Extra, December 24, 2023. www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/roads-and-wheel-transport-in-africa? - Citation 10 [20] Samuel, Isaac. “Roads and Wheeled Transport in African History.” African History Extra, December 24, 2023. www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/roads-and-wheel-transport-in-africa?. - Citation 17 [21] Samuel, Isaac. “Textile Trade and Industry in the Kingdom of Kongo: 1483-1914.” African History Extra, July 16, 2023. www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/textile-trade-and-industry-in-the.
@@Somebodyherefornow In the video I feature numbers in the top right corner to show which sources correspond to which claims. Some number include multiple sources in instances where I make multiple claims drawing from different sources in quick succession. I included only one citation of each source with the on-screen citation coming at the end of the part where I primarily drew from that source, rather than citing the same source repeatedly for each claim I drew from that source, because this is a UA-cam video rather than a scholarly essay, and the formatting makes those types of citations more difficult to incorporate than in-text citations.
Very true! Acemoglu and Robinson cite a few examples of African countries in their paper, and their analysis may very well be valid for these examples, but I think it's a huge mistake to regard any of them as representative of the whole continent. To make broad, overarching statements about a body made up of many individual countries, you must at the very least demonstrate that your claims hold true to a large portion of those countries (and ideally demonstrate it for ALL of them), including those that are physically seperated to ensure any trends you're establishing are actually continent-spanning rather than specific to a smaller region.
@@SomasAcademy agreed.... we are home to more than a 1000 languages.... and most of them are still undocumented..... I do wish more poeple travelled to Africa to avoid the stereotypes.
Sadly that youtube channel tends to make absurd mistakes. As a European, I noticed the same tendency when they speak about the EU. Full of bias, simplifications and plain mistakes
As a European I've noticed that too. Seems to fail to understand that the EU is a trade union and not a second United States... Notified a lot of falsifies and simplifications. Many assumptions made that would only make sense if you view all of Europe (and not just the EU) as a single entity, which is daft. You can hate the EU, that's fine, but don't go around treating it like it's something it's not.
@@Stettafire The EU is not just a trade union. Something like Asean or Mercosur would be more described like that. The EU is a political and economic union (and rapidly military union) with the structure of a confederation and a degree of supranational sovereignty. It is halfway to being a country, but yes it is far from the level of the US (though I will say it is more integrated than the first US constitution, the Articles of Confederation).
@@falsevacuum4667 It's not really hard to be more binding than the Articles of Confederation, considering it said something like "united in common friendship" or the like. A parking ticket is more binding.
I’m glad your channel exists. As a Nigerian American I remember trying to find videos about African history back in the early 2010s and finding nothing but misinformation and Eurocentric propaganda about Africa. The west has a huge problem when it comes to understanding Africa and it shows. I remember having to correct a high school geography teacher, that Egypt isn’t the most populous country in Africa.
Thank you so much! I had similar issues back when I was first getting into African history; so much of the stuff you can find about African history on the internet, even today, is complete nonsense, whether Eurocentric propaganda, conspiracy theories, or simply myths repeated by people with no desire or ability to verify them. I am so glad to have found some of the channels and videos I recommend in the description, because they gave me the foundations to get really interested in African history, and eventually study West African history as a graduate student, which introduced me to a ton of academic sources that are unfortunately very inaccessible for most people! I want to make some of this information more accessible to people by covering it in future videos. I hope that in the near future African history will be at least as familiar in the US as Asian history, and that massive misconceptions like "Africans never developed agriculture" or "Africans were cut off from the rest of the old world until the 16th century" are as inconceivable as saying similar things about Asia (though this is probably gonna require some school curriculum changes, not just people on UA-cam trying our best to share this information with people who never learned it in school lol).
Western views on African history) tend to just be propaganda of one form or another (Wakanda Utopia from the Left, Stone Age Savages from the racists). Few people care about what it was actually like.
Thank you lol, these ideas are surprisingly and unfortunately common in the west. I hope this video helps to change that, so that we can move on from stuff everyone should know to the more interesting stories of African history that I've covered in my videos on Benin and Wagadu, and hope to cover many more of in the future.
Senegal is one of the most arrogant and yet poor and disfunctioning country of the coast. The country will fall in the next decade if it keeps going at current pace. They even have a scientist who believes Egyptians were related to Black Africans 😆
@@SomasAcademy thank you. I'm a history enthusiast: currently teach History in Nigeria and planning to start on my YT channel. I was surprised to hear that people thought the Sahara desert cut everything off: truly they are erasing the Trans Saharan Trade.
As the child of an African history professor, I can't really begin to express how much I appreciate that someone is taking the time to do this work. So, thank you!
Oh my goodness, thank you so much, this really means a lot. I always try my best, and look forward to making more detailed African history videos in the future. I'm glad you enjoyed the video, and shoutout to your African history professor parent!
@SomasAcademy Hi Soma All that being said, after having made a rundown of the issues that you had with the analysis in the EE video, it now begs the question, what do you think the causes are of the current economic state of the continent as a whole? What do you believe are the most weighty circumstances behind them? Despite the content of the EE video, the opening context or the reason the question can be asked is still a genuine question. It is why people would choose and gravitate to the video in the first place, because they are wondering about that question themselves. They see the modern day results (or relative lack of modern day results) and are looking for a historically accurate and context defined explanation. They are looking for an "all things considered" diagnosis, let's say, of the relative economic lag of the majority of the continent right now. As someone that definitely seems to pride themselves on having the history right, how would you put your answer into context, knowing that other places and countries and continents have achieved more *relative*, let's say, stability and success? The continent is not a monalith, but that also leaves an observer to the task of making sense of how it is still mostly a state in need of development as a whole and that it's still that way for nearly each country despite their differences and their...very hard to argue against...similarities. Essentially, once you have a chance, that is the video that I would like to see from you on this topic. I have no reason to disagree with many of your assertions in this video per say, but I think putting out a hopefully comprehensive, within reason ofc, look into why things are where they are and what people are missing about how the current context could be used towards widespread economic prosperity and widespread stability would help put a button on this discussion in a helpful way.
@@Hanover-f8m Thank you for your comment! In this video I stuck to factual corrections since those are much easier to present and support, but I do intend to cover your requested topic in a future video, once I have sufficient time to research and cover the topic in appropriate depth.
The wheel thing comes from Murray Rothbard. It’s a staple of racist and libertarian discourse on Africa. Modern economics (neoclassical) is a straight up religion.
Basically it comes down to two things necessity and environment, for example why didn’t Europeans adopt camels when they proved to be more effective than the wheel because they could carry a lot, easier to produce and were cheaper to maintain, you also don’t need a road for camels it was just the superior option. It’s the same reason why the wheel didn’t see much use in Africa it was the environment, camels don’t do well in European environment and many Africans preferred camels because they were honestly the better choice. Also the wheel was a secondary method of transportation and trade in Europe the first has always been by boat both river and coastal. It was faster and you could carry more it just made more sense. And a lot of African states did that they used rivers for the same reason. Also many Sub Saharan Africans did use the wheel, both Ethiopia and Somalia did. And others didn’t because they had no real need for it and that’s not a reflection of their technological development it’s a example of their environment.
I don't believe EE got it from Rothbard, and I don't believe Rothbard came up with it. And neoclassical economists typically don't care for Rothbard, who would be considered "heterodox" for thinking econ should consist of verbal logic rather than math & empirics.
@@jonathanviera1589 The video clearly explained that the wheel declined in Europe once the Roman empire was no longer around to maintain roads. This points to a political/institutional explanation: the questions of why there aren't wheeled transports and why there aren't roads go together.
@@clownpendotfart and even with wheels Europe still primarily used boats by river and boats because it was the better option. Africans did have roads and probably could have used the wheel more but why waste time and energy when boats and pack animals are readily available, easier and fit the environment better.
That's how they got big and stay that way: clickbaity thumbnails, neatly packaged and mass produced content. The audiovisual equivalent of a happy meal.
It's not clickbait, it's imperial core propaganda. It's providing a bunch of nonsense arguments to avoid engaging with the history of european imperialism and extractivism
@@gabrielladias420not only European even. American too. Don't wait for EE to ever criticize anything in capitalism. The guy is a straight up propagandist that poses as centrist.
Thank you. A lot of UA-camrs give their thoughts on topics they are unqualified to speak about. I'm a civil engineer. One UA-camr claimed the bridge collapse in Baltimore was from failing infrastructure when the truth is that bridge wasn't designed to withstand a cargo boat hitting it's support column.
That's baffling, you see the boat strike the bridge and it immediately collapses, the number one hypothesis for the bridge collapse is right there, haha. I'd love to see what a bridge "designed" to withstand that level of strike would look like.
If feel like the central issue here is the notion that Africa is uniquely poor, which means it's poverty must be rooted in something inherent to the African continent. One must only compare the development of the Chinese GDP per capita with, say, the Kenyan one to realize that African poverty is not all that exceptional. And this is China we're talking about. Try arguing that their geographical conditions consigned them to poverty and people will rightfully call you an idiot.
China has provinces that do worse than Kenya despite better natural resources, or do better than Zambia despite receiving less aid than Zambia in the 1960s. Both are big patches of land with local economies in conflict of interests.
China has provinces that do worse than Kenya despite better natural resources, or do better than Zambia despite receiving less aid than Zambia in the 1960s. Both are big patches of land with local economies in conflict of interests.
@@OlivierVerdys so when china invests in foreign countries that is colonialism but when france orchestrates coups and policy changes in their former colonies that is fine or what exactly is this stupid comment. China if anything is employing imperialism in a very "light" way. They expect to gain things from their investments, they don't own the factories or the infrastructure they build for the countries.
@@hatinmyselfiscool2879 now take what I say with a grain of salt but i'm pretty sure that most of the infrastructure build by china in other countries is atleast Leased to them for like 30 years or something , if not owned by them directly.
Regional poverty in China can be related to their geography. And the geography combination with poor leadership allowed their rulers to cut the away from world trade and capitalism resulting in poverty. What is your point?
I was confused about the fertile lands part of that video My native Uganda has A LOT of fertile soil being basically surrounded by lakes and rivers year round except in the northeastern third It's even reflected in our rapid population rise from 5 million at independence 60 years ago to 50 million now in spite of the the numerous civil instabilities and wars Why we're poor is more due to all our leaders not knowing what the fuck they're doing. We don't work with the leaders we vote to advance the country. We vote the ones least likely to fuck up our lives (the ones with the guns so they don't do a stupid and military coup) and try to work around them (in a business, law and justice things) With varying results
Yeah, African poverty is a complex issue that varies from country to country, but in general I would say colonial and post-colonial political factors are exponentially more significant than pre-colonial or geographical factors.
@@-nyte2063 the corruption is just a symptom of the root issue. Capitalism requires the expansion of markets and exploitation for ever increasing profits, to do so they must take resources from the imperial periphery. Supporting corrupt politicians serves that purpose.
@@Bob-bs9ok but all else being equal corruption would still lead to these same issues regardless of the economic model used to drive a society.That capitalism is a factor in these individuals motivations is not as important as the fact that they would enrich themselves by any means, countries with communist ideology namely the ussr and the ccp both have had issues with corruption. All I’m saying is that corruption seems to be the root problem here which exacerbates most other problems encountered m.
I am an Afro-American, and I was already sighing when I heard the first point about the supposed isolation of sub-Saharan Africa. I recently talked about this assumption in my art class that was implicit in one of our readings about how world peace could be reached through artistic sharing and preservation. The author only focused on the Silk Road linking Europe, North African and West Asia, and East Asia; so as the only person of black African descent in my class, I felt the need to question the place of sub-Saharan Africa and (indigenous) America in his view of world peace. I mentioned the Trans-Saharan trades and the Indian Ocean trades to show how sub-Saharan Africa was well-connected to the rest of the Old World art history. My ancestors came from the western Sahelian, Sudanian, and Guinean regions of sub-Saharan Africa and many aspects of Afro-American culture have roots in the products of the Trans-Saharan trade such as music (see banjo/folk lute and indigenous African fiddling traditions) and spirituality (Islam was not an uncommon faith amongst the enslaved and even impacted the magico-religious practices of the non-Muslim majority; it also provided a means of literacy for enslaved Africans in the Americas who could write in Arabic or Ajami). And to talk about agriculture, the indigenous knowledge of the sub-Saharan Africans with crops was a driving factor in the trafficking of certain groups to the American colonies!! Indigo and rice production in South Carolina and Georgia (where I have family from), for example, motivated the importation of Africans from the region where they were already engage in such business!! As an descendant of enslaved Africans in the United States, the idea that agriculture was not popular in Africa is very insulting to my history. Thank you so much for making this video and setting the record straight!!
I mean… wasn’t like one of the main reasons why the Empire of Mali was so strong was due to its exportation of salt? Like history proves the idea of sub-Saharan Africa being like another planet to be wrong.
@@flyingsquirrell6953 It had a central position in the Salt-Gold trade, where salt from the Sahara was transported south to the Sahel, Sudan, and beyond in West Africa, and gold was transported north to the Sahara and Eurasia. So yes, Mali grew wealthy off of imports and exports across wide ranging trade networks.
@@flyingsquirrell6953 Even Ice age caveman in Europe have been snown to have had long-distance trade so this doesn't mean anything in regards to civilization
I am curious on this first point, how does crossing the Sahara desert stack up to other long distance travel? Would the supposed ease of crossing these routes be any more dangerous than travelling around say modern day UK or other parts of Europe? Was it any more deadly or of similar danger from the elements? I only wonder as the saraha was such a common 'deadly inescapable Environment' trope in nature documentaries and other media. thank you
the agriculture point is so funny to me because my dad’s side of the family is full of farmers and i’ve never heard anything about it being super hard to farm there
Yeah, it's true that some parts of Africa have pretty poor soil quality which can cause difficulties with industrial scale planting (especially monocropping), but it's neither true across the entire continent nor a serious enough situation to prevent farming on the scale most people were doing it for most of history!
@@EveryoneWhoUsesThisTV The reason Africa isn't known for those things is because people don't bother to research it, because it certainly had them lmao, see the book recommendations in the description and my previous videos on West African history. I really wish people would stop assuming that because they don't know anything about African history, that means there was nothing there, it gets really frustrating as an Africanist.
@@EveryoneWhoUsesThisTV It was certainly pretty sprawling, yeah. I wouldn't call it "based on agriculture" because that would be a strange characterization, but obviously it produced enough food to sustain large cities like Gao, Timbuktu, Djenne, etc. and populations that did not farm to support themselves like ironworkers, nobles, griots, weavers, merchants, scholars, etc. Large urban populations also existed throughout all other parts of Africa.
@@EveryoneWhoUsesThisTV ...It was also impossible to replicate in Europe for most of history, the Roman Empire was pretty historically unique. Anyway, you've shifted the goalpost from "it was impossible to build large cities with specialization in Africa" - an unambiguously factually incorrect statement since Africa had many large cities and plenty of specialization - to "it was impossible to build empires on the same scale as the largest contiguous Empire in European history in Africa." I don't think you're arguing in good faith after that kind of fallacy, so I won't be engaging with you any further.
@@EveryoneWhoUsesThisTV Never happened? There are dozens of very sizeable cities and towns on the Swahili coast. But there was no agriculture there - these towns sit on mostly parched and confined coastal islands, and don't have the space or water to feed themselves. Feeding these large city populations depended entirely on steady consistent trade with Bantu agrarian grain & meat producers on the interior highlands of the mainland. There was enough inland agriculture & trade in East Africa to maintain quite high city populations on the Swahili coast. It is very comparable to the situation of many Mediterranean cities, notably in Greece, Italy and the Levant, who were also constrained in confined coastal locations, and also similarly depended on far-flung food supplies trade to maintain their urban populations.
Sumpter animals can move goods but ships fossil fuel, wind or human powered are going move goods at much less cost. Look at the cost of modern goods transportation. A container ship can move a shipping container for $0.92 per statute mile, a train $2.75 per statue mile, and a truck about $8.00 per statue mile. The Sahara Desert was and is an impediment to trade where as trade on the Mediterranean Sea meant the province of Africa were considered the breadbaskets of the Roman Republic.
@@eddydoglegwell in large inland regions without large rivers then ship transport really isn't an option. The best available option would be the camel in such situations
Economics explained only ever uses basic economics to describe the complexity of nations. Nothing of value is gained by watching the channel unless you've never learned basic economics.
@@vyvianalcott1681I have seen him allude to his experience in college courses, and demonstrates familiarity with how college-level courses are taught. It is likely he has a Bachelor's, but technically it is possible he has further education or dropped out. Sorry, that's all I know
Not really he obviously can’t go too deep since most people aren’t econ grads but his analysis is often supported by advanced economic theory at least it was when I watched it
@@luisfilipe2023 No, if you're actually a qualified educator you should be able to explain advanced concepts or at least allude to them so we know where you're getting your information from. He doesn't do that because he's a hack, like most economists.
In the Western imagination, Africa is stereotyped as a continent plagued by corrupt dictators, with the supposition being that Africans are perhaps too "primitive" to appreciate the virtues of Western-style democracy. But the truth is that ever since the end of colonialism, Africans have been actively prevented from establishing democracies. The legacy of strongman rule in Africa is largely a Western invention, not an indigenous proclivity. Western powers have thwarted countless attempts at real independence, which casts a rather ironic light on the West's historical image as a beacon of democracy and popular sovereignty. If you ever try to suggest that poor countries are poor because they have been disadvantaged by an imbalanced global economy, someone is almost certain to respond by pointing the finger at corruption instead. ...For anyone that isn't aware of the history of colonialism, unequal treaties, structural adjustment and trade rules, this seems as good an explanation as any. ...It is important that we expand our conception of corruption to include illicit outflows, anonymous companies, secrecy jurisdictions... ...And yet the mainstream definition of corruption does not encompass them... ...Instead, the corruption narrative diverts our attention away from these exogenous problems and places the burden of blame on developing countries themselves. ~ From "The Divide: A Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions"
The strongman rule is not a western inventions but an african thing. Although Africans are able to establish democratic regimes which last, it has generally failed because Africans are very tribalistic and rarely vote for people who aren't from their tribes. And the ruling ethnicity is a minority, it has no interest in democracy since the majority wouldn't vote for them, even they have great ideas.
I have really found a gem of a Channel here, so many intelligent and well articulated people here. This comment just add to it. Indeed we are really getting there.
I have a question. I was taught that the wave of decolonisation in Africa following WW2, had the effect of creating sudden power vacuums which were then exploited by bad actors. The argument was that the West, having restricted access to any form of training and policy education, should have stayed for 20-30 years, reintroduced political education to these countries, fostered a new generation of policymakers who were local to the areas, set them up for success, and removed more slowly. Then when African countries did ask for economic advice from the West, the advice was to grow cash crops, and we all know how that turned out. Where would this fit (if at all) within the paragraph you quoted? I agree corruption is a poor excuse for poverty. I think poverty fosters corruption and acceptance of/resignation around corruption, not the other way around. We think of corruption as something that doesn't happen here, but we have an unbroken tradition of viewing the law as legitimate. We are just better at making things legal, which means the corruption is restricted to those familiar with the law, or those who can make the law. But the inner tendency is the same. I was saying to some Indonesian friends the other day, we have just as much corruption here in the West, we just hide it better under layers of respectability.
"They just filled the gaps from sloppy reading with their own preconceptions" Like all neoclassical economists. I was recently studying Zimbabwe land reform and its incredible to see economists talk through the evidence and then conclude something completely bizarre because it fits their preconceived understanding, even when it conflicts with the evidence.
It’s hard to get Into these subjects without history. If you try you get bogus economics videos like this one that this video criticizes. Sadly people often fall for these kinds of videos because it simply shows what the majority already believes and doesn’t disprove any misconceptions.
I've never understood how people dislike history. Sure it may not be the most lucrative straight out, but you learn so much about life in general and it helps even understand the modern day
@@Petey-se1lo It’s because it’s often taught very badly in schools. It’s sometimes the teachers fault but often it’s also hard filter out what is important in class since it’s impossible to go through world history with the amount of hours the subject gets making the subject very difficult to teach effectively in a class setting.
Ive seen soo many EE debunked videos from so many different UA-camrs with specialties in different areas that now I wouldn’t believe EE if they told me the sky was blue without getting independent and securely sited verification
It's not much of a debunked video, like when EE says the Sahara is like an ocean and Soma says it's more like a sea. EE is just making a point about how it makes trade harder which it does especially with Europe, doesn't mean there aren't examples of African trade with other areas, especially with the Middle East through the Horn of Africa. Still a good history video, and EE makes a good economics video.
Watching videos with a political bias so as to attempt to confirm your own doesn't say anything about any info or misinfo that was relied, but only about your very own quality as a an impartial listener
As a South African always told (confidently) by Afrikaans descendants of Dutch settlers that 1) bantu people arrived at the same time/after the Dutch settled therefore we have equal claim, only the Khoi tribes were here and 2) we had no trade/technology/were taught to farm/were "civilised" by colonisers, despite archeological evidence to the contrary (despite the destruction of others), i REALLY appreciate this video. I'd love for you to do a video debunking far right South African talking points, but I'm definitely saving this one for future reference. Excellent work with reference.
Thank you! I probably won't be directly debunking any narratives like that, because I don't want my channel to be percieved as political, but if I ever cover South African history in the future I'll definitely discuss when the Bantu peoples arrived in the region and what their civilizations were like in Southern Africa.
Yeah, it’s not like there’s no truth to it. The common Afrikaner claim that the Nguni/Tswana/etc were equal to monkeys is definitely bigoted, but you guys weren’t as advanced as Kongo or Ethiopia or West Africa, let alone the Dutch colonizers.
I tried to listen to Economics Explaind's interview with a "specialist" on Spotify. In the description of that podcast, Africa was referred to as a country. 🗿 One day, I'm going to do a takedown of Jared Diamond. He seems to be a prominent source of these mindsets...
I listened to the whole interview, and found Acemoglu - the guy they interviewed - so much more knowledgeable and respectable than the video would suggest. He was even very clearly trying to steer them away from the Diamond school of geographical determinism (even though his alternative leans into institutional determinism, with the same overgeneralizations and other issues of any form of determinism). They just... didn't listen to him.
@@SomasAcademyI can at least respect the latter mindset. It tends to come from Africans who are frustrated about the poor state of présent politics, but I find it often is projected onto the past in an anachronistic way. But yeah, I haven't a clue what Economics Explained was thinking with this video. Feels like he wanted to make something he knew he didn't have to research as an easy "give me". Lots of those big "general explained" channels seem to have a penchant for messing up on Africa. Still thinking to how a large creator was arguing in his comments that Africans lacked ships.
It's almost kind of funny how people desperately want to explain recent history with deep geographical roots. Like trying to explain why Africa is poor in the immediate aftermath of European colonialism by talking about the Sahara is like trying to explain Western European poverty after the fall of the Western Roman Empire by talking about ice age glaciation patterns.
@@hedgehog3180 No. It really isn't. Africa's relative paucity of useful rivers and the Sahara desert being quite obviously more difficult to travel than most other areas of the world are not irrelevant to Africa's economic state, nor is the native fertility level of the soil before industrial fertilizers. Just because trade caravans could, and did, travel across the Sahara, doesn't mean that sub-saharan Africa wasn't significantly more isolated than it would have been if that whole area hadn't been so inhospitable. The fact remains that Africa was economically underdeveloped relative to Asia, Europe and arguably even some parts of the Americas before European contact. If we're not going to accept the old idea that it was a racial thing, then this does require an explanation, which is exactly what Jared Diamond wrote his book to do. As for Ice Age glaciation patterns, it would be pretty weird to explain events in about 480AD with reference to events that happened nearly 10,000 years earlier. Although, the fall of the Western empire does coincides roughly with the end of the Roman warm period, and this has indeed been cited as a contributing factor to Western Europe's problems in the immediate aftermath of Rome's fall, due to the drop in agricultural output occasionned by less ideal weather in areas north of the Alps. However the reason this comparison is not normally made is because this would raise the notion that, like Western Europe, Africa was benefitting from its imperial overseers and that the removal of the imperial power subsequently caused the degredation of the society. That is not a politically popular perspective to hold about Africa, but it is the pervailing one held about Western Europe.
@@hiddenhistI suspect that the reason why these "general explained" channels fail so hard when talking about africa is because they rely on popular "knowlage" and common sense rather then actual research. They don't educate, they make money by justifing existing beliefs with techno-babel. They don't have to be true, they just have to make sense to the undereducated
The other item of note is the relative nature of rich vs. poor. Many historians considered the Mali Empire rich in its day, supplying half the gold of old Europe, while the modern Republic of Mali is poor. But the modern Republic of Mali is far richer and more productive than its 14th century counterpart. Same could be said comparing modern vs ancient Greece in their respective times. The difference is in comparing these nations of their time to the rest of the world.
I think the real issue we need to think about is the fact that the wealth these countries have never went away, it just isn't owned by itself anymore. Mali is still rich in everything, even currency. But that currency isn't in mali. It's somewhere in a french bank.
There is a slight difference. The King of Mali was very rich because he owned or at least had a very big stake in the gold mines and salt production and he also owned a lot of slaves. The say that the citizens of the Kingdom of Mali were the richest people in the world on a per capita basis or to say that Mali had the biggest economy in the world at that time would not be true
@@youtubeuserremainsanonymou9022 would be nice to see them do an economic history video. Especially bc UE has ranted before about the lack of historical specificity and has more generally shown some interest in history
I clicked this video because I almost never find videos refuting the egregiously shallow, often harmful and often inaccurate or misleading content on Economics Explained. There was a time I didnt mind the channel and even found it insightful sometimes. But the quality of the content there is too shallow to be useful. Its more like "Pop Economics" -- it doesn't even try to do the topics it selects justice. Your explanations are what I expect from a channel claiming to do "economics explained" content. This is great stuff you've put together here and I love the way you explain it. I hope you and channels like yours fill this void. Folks like me are interested in the topic of economics as consumers and to get our info from EE would be tragic.
Thank you, but economics isn't the focus of my channel, history is more my area. If you want a solid economics channel, I would recommend Unlearning Economics!
@@SomasAcademy Sorry for the late reply, hard to track comments on youtube. But to your point: economics and history aren't as separate as traditional educational would have us believe. Case in point: this video :) Look forward to more of your work!
It feels good to know there are critical thinkers out there (such as yourself) who refuse to allow such deplorably incorrect “historical info” on Africa to fester into widely-accepted misinformation, that goes unquestioned by many & is mindlessly consumed, then readily regurgitated like it’s the truth. Thank you, from a Senegambian man… +1 subscriber my friend🤞🏿
The idea that Africans didn’t invent wheels because they were afraid that an evil king would steal them is honestly probably the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard. But it’s actually terrifying to think of how many people watch a video like the EE one and believe every word he said just because he cited one study
The comment section of the EE channel always gets a strong far-right tinge whenever that dude talks about any African country. Stopped watching his videos because it was so bad
Idk what is it with the internet and Africa. For some reason a lot of people online have a primal hatred towards anything related to Africa and it's quite worriying.
Now never go to a channel called history scope video on Africa economy. I remember comments straight up saying how some races are inferior and how Africa is always going to be poor because of it. It's full on racism
Its maybe the Side effect of the shitshow in America because a Lot of the Arguments are coined in a very American way ON both Sites Like for example the whole nonsense with the black Community only maybe works with America and the Obsession with White and black and the whole generic discussions
The idea that Subsaharan Africa wasn’t in contact with Eurasia is ridiculous, we have accounts of interactions going back to classical times. Augustus even met with a delegation of Ethiopians on the island of Samos in 21 BCE.
They didn't say there was no contact, they said isolated.... Before the internal combustion engine anyone who didn't live within a few miles was a mysterious forigner.... :D Sub-Saharan Africa wasn't constantly swamped with Europe's issues the way Northern Africa was, that's all, a small point made in the EE video :)
@@EveryoneWhoUsesThisTVit's one of many "technically true" argument you and ee make. Everything is trchnically true if you take away enough context. West africa and east Africa were not isolated. We just know less about the region because either artifacts were lost or the rest was destroyed in europes endless superiority complex and their inferiority jumping high when they found out what africans coukd achieve. One of the reasons great zimbabwe, benin and the ashante suffered from lack of cultural artifacts is that europeans stole or destroyed what ever they could get their hands on.
It's great to have voices like yours resisting ignorant attempts to erase history. I wonder if you could do a video on looted ancient artifacts sometime in the future? If Africa has no history why have they kept in museums what they didn't melt down or destroy entirely?
As a guy married to a Zimbabwean-Mozambican, I find the history of Africa to be fascinating. One thing I learned was that Chinese coins have even been found at Great Zimbabwe. Indian Ocean trade! 😮😂😊
Great job. I literally responded to that video, and there were so many ridiculous claims, I commented that a video was needed to debunk them. So THANK YOU.
@@jasonhaven7170 I did and he didn't really make a mistake. The whole thing is based on not understanding what EE is saying or expanding upon it. For instance, to say the Sahara contributes to isolating Africa is not to say there's never been any trade whatsoever between Africa and other continents. Also even if he did make a mistake he's making "Geography determines destiny" points, not racial ones.
@@jasonhaven7170 For the other one he just says "Ancient Africans would've found it very hard to develop agriculture given these factors" in reference to poor geographic conditions that meant much of Africa lagged behind other parts of the world in terms of productive agriculture. He doesn't say "Africans never developed any agriculture at all".
I completely agree with alot of your claims. It makes me sick how the western world still seems to paint africa as a monolith of primitivism so we can ignore the continents humanity when we exploit them further. Excellent sources, i’ve learned a lot especially from your agriculture and cultivation section but I think another key part of the problems facing agriculture cultivation in a lot of subsaharan agriculture is that the classical farming methods used for thousands of generations in the area functionally disappeared with the advent of colonialism, demonizing these methods in favor of monocultures, displacement of natives form their land and isolating them from information on such methods so they would no longer hold any power in the means of production, as well as opportunists deforesting previously lush areas(that worked along side agricultural customs for water preservation and work against erosion) for immediate profit. Again great video, libertarian belief in the west always seems to make poverty a moral failure so it’s only a matter of time before racism and infantilization comes into play with the most exploited continent in the world.
I think these ideas are so ingrained in the public perception that EE just assumed they were true from the beginning. I myself have made the mistake of using these arguments to explain Africa
Absolutely, these are unfortunately very widespread misconceptions - although I never thought that Africa lacked agriculture and never heard the wheel argument until much later, I also repeated the argument about the Sahara cutting off Sub-Saharan Africa several times back before I got into African history! It's very easy to pick up myths when so little about African history is widely discussed. That's why I thought it was important to make this video, and why I tried not to be insulting to EE for making these mistakes (even though as an educational channel I think their standards should be much higher) - I don't want anyone to feel bad for not knowing better when these ideas are so common, I just want to help make them less common!
Well in Kenya, the community I come from, the Agikuyu, were basically farmers, domesticated cattle, sheeps and goats, had no king, was fairly democratic, was head by a chief who was assisted by a council of elders, who regularly changed as per the age set, had the iron age, basically everything that researchers don't mention
I would say "Western" or even just "non-African" understanding, because I've found these misconceptions common among many Asians and even African Americans. The public discussion of Africa outside of the continent is unfortunately incredibly limited, and colonial-era racism unfortunately fills in a lot of the gaps even for people of African descent.
I remember studying African history in college, and I was shocked by how many things Americans do not learn about African history (eurocentric bias). I learned only a tiny bit about it before college, mainly with Egypt, Aksum, the Atlantic slave trade, and imperialism by Europeans. In college, I learned so much more, but I just scratched the surface. I wish history education in the U.S. about groups outside of the Americas and Europe were better covered.
Why would a basic history class in the U.S. focus so much on people groups outside of the U.S. I wouldn't except a history class in Nigeria to focus on the Japanese or Brazilian peoples.
A basic history course in the US will teach you about Ancient Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, Medieval and Early Modern Europe, European colonialism, a little bit about Ancient China and India, a bit about Japan, and a number of other non-American history subjects. The vast majority of history taught in US classes is not US-specific history. Considering also that Africans were one of the core founding demographics of the British colonies, West and West Central African history has a much greater place in the narrative of US history than the founding of Buddhism or the Mandate of Heaven, which you will learn about in a basic history course.
Why are some many Eurocentric scholars so infatuated with the ideology that any civilization that did not have the wheel or make use of wheel is back-wards, in.ferior, and primi.tive to European civilization.
It's partly because of insecurity. Many Eurocentrics are the descendants of ancient Northern Europeans. The Greco-Roman called their ancestors primitive and intelligently inferior. Eurocentrics feel insecure about the fact that Western civilization was founded by people who looked down on them. So they project their insecurities onto other people.
Sorry did he just claim africa didn't develop agriculture, the continent has the highest rural population and highest subsistence farming of any continent. One of the reason it is considered poor is because farming for oneself does does not show up in GDP, as it isn't exchanging any money.
Ghanaian- American here. (I'm ashanti and great bringing up my tribe). Great vid overall. From my understanding, the wheel thing came from the fact that the Kongo Kingdom didnt use the wheel when the Portuguese arrived in the 15th century. You can find that in Acemougu's book "Why nations fail." But the issue with economics explained is when he extrapolated that because the Kongo Kingdom didnt have wheels in the 1400s, that meant all of Africa didnt have wheels, which is a silly extrapolation.
Making mistakes is one thing, but misrepresenting your one source is what I think is revealing. As someone making videos, making mistakes is part of the process, but taking sources and engaging with them is so incredibly important. Also, great video as always! 💚
Same with South India and Southeast Asia. Indonesia has experienced a number of powerhouse thallassocratic empires which were DOMINANT and it was the very terrain and difficulty of land transport than led them to defend against the Mongols and remain independent. Those empires were so wealthy due to MARITIME TRADE. Same with the Cholas and so on.17:12
Here from Veritas et Caritas, awesome video. I'm sad to admit I don't know as much about African history as I should, beyond how it connects to Middle Eastern and American history, but this has given me a lot of interesting threads to follow. Thank you.
Don't forget, most Black people are aware the word "History" originates from the term "His story." That's means his story, in reference to a bunch of White men lies!
❤😍❤😍❤ Fantastic video, pleeeease do more videos like this where you cover broader topics with a wide scope, especially on African history. You're obviously very knowledgable about this subject, and I think there is a good reason why your most popular videos are about African empires. UA-cam really needs more informative content on African history like this, you're right there are way too many misconceptions floating around on this subject. Plus I think the algorithm will reward you :)
I really appreciate you putting in the effort to pronounce Acemoğlu’s last name in Turkish ^^. It also really sucks that he doesn’t talk much about the neocolonialism and outsider western destabilization and meddling that we still have to deal with to this day and how colonialism really did a number on the infrastructure that has been built into these countries were primarily based on resource extraction and that doesn’t help much with diversifying their economies and the people developing more self determination for them selves 🤦🏻♂️
Yeah, I always try to pronounce things as accurately as I can, especially names! And I agree, the article and interview really don't touch on post-colonial factors, which I think are comparably important to colonial factors and more important than pre-colonial factors in explaining the economic situations of most African countries!
That was simply outstanding. Thank you so much for the astonishing amount of research material you put into making this. Yet, I ask you: is it necessary to go through it all so quickly? I know we can all just press the rewind button, but there's no need to rush. I loved the way you deal with the scholarship. I'm curious as to whether you intentionally kept Henry Louis Gate's documentary Africa's Great Civilizations out of your references, and if so, why? Before your video, it was the material that had literally turned my globe upside down.
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed! I am a naturally fast talker, I sometimes try to slow things down for my video but to me it feels agonizingly slow and artificial lol, apologies if it makes me hard to keep up with sometimes. That documentary wasn't in my references simply because I've never seen it lol, I'll check it out when I get the chance now that you've brought it to my attention.
Ok I'm a complete history noob who didn't even have a full high school history education because my school was weird. But I noticed a flaw immediately when he said sub saharan Africa was isolated. If Africa was isolated, HOW were Nigerians and other West Africans Muslim by the time Europeans "discovered" them?
As someone with just a bachelor's degree in economics, economics explained is probably one of the worst economics channels on UA-cam. Not surprised to see they make mistakes in other fields.
Considering she has two BAs and a Master's, and we're not even sure if EE finished his undergrad, yeah I would say so Even without taking into account that she specialised in history and African history, while his subject was Economics lol
Here is an experiment for anyone who thinks a wheelbarrow is more technologically advanced over putting something on your head over the same ground. Go to any two mile stretch of road and resolve to move fiour concrete cinder blocks from point A to point B. But dont use the road. Instead, go 100 yards too one side, in the brush and try that oh-so-wonderful wheelbarrow for a two mile trip to a similar poit 100 yards to one side of the roadway, never approaching closer than 100 yards to the road. You'll end up just making two trips with two blocks each,... And be thankful you no longer had that damned wheelbarrow to fuck with.
Also, don't use a modern wheelbarrow made out lightweight aluminum with a pneumatic rubber tire. Use a wheelbarrow made of heavy wood, with an inflexible wooden wheel.
Thank you for doing the work to correct the record. As "edutainment" and video essays have become more popular, we get more issues with dilettantes speaking outside their area of expertise, or just straight up spreading misinformation. This isn't the first time that particular UA-cam channel has done this. And as you point out, misconceptions about African history abound. Again, thank you. I hope this video gets half as many views as EE's incorrect one.
I would hope EE is smart enough to see this and produce a new video correcting themselves on everything, actually reading the paper they cited. I mean, it's a free video idea and 75% of the work has been done already.
I don't get why people think the wheel is the mother invention of all human civilisation. Wheels are overrated as a key invention that creates "successful civilisation." The mass adoption of wheels are more of a sign of a stable era. Where roads are smooth enough that woodem wheels don't break easily. The incas and Aztecs were quite successful without the wheel. Clearly the wheel is not the key invention.
I tend to have a lot of quibbles with Economics Explained. It is a very good channel, but they also tend to espouse pretty traditional economic analysis with a lot of overlooking power dynamics that have created or reinforced current trends, much less basic history 😅. I haven't seen the video you were inspired by, but I appreciate this thorough review of pre-colonial African trade and economics. One thing we know is that all the places colonized were colonized BECAUSE they were wealthy in both raw materials but also in finished goods. People wanted the stuff from these places, meaning trade was plentiful in these places well before colonization.
Yeah, I assume it would be very hard to put out weekly videos on a subject as broad and complicated as economics without oversimplifying a lot and making lots of errors along the way. I'm sure that with the resources a channel that size has at its disposal they could improve the research standards somewhat (maybe hire a few people to fact-check), but I can't blame them for blunders; there's inevitably gonna be a tradeoff between making high quality videos and posting on a regular schedule.
This is a great review and response to the video!! :3 Particularly, the claim about agriculture never developing in Africa is SO absurd that I'm positive Economics Explained did zero fact-checking and just relied entirely on their own racist biases.
They didn't say farming didn't develop in Africa. They said large scale agriculture never produced a large city or empire in sub-Saharan Africa which is broadly true. :)
@@EveryoneWhoUsesThisTV ...no? Just watched the EE video, and the first time they bring up agriculture is the clip used in this one. The second time, EE claims that agriculture only existed in select areas of Africa (very false) and that people had to "keep moving" (false as well; many pre-colonial sub-Saharan societies throughout West, South, Central, and East Africa lived sedentary lifestyles). Also, pre-colonial sub-Saharan Africa had a number of empires and cities. This is literally mentioned in this video. There was Songhai, Ghana/Wagadou, the Sokoto Caliphate, Mali, Kanem-Bornu, Jolof, etc. for empires, and Kumbi Saleh, Timbuktu, Kong, Kilwa, Djenné-Djenno, Sokoto, Ibadan, and Ngazargamu (just to name a few) for cities.
@@queegle99 I'm familiar with African empires, but they rarely sprang from an agricultural surplus like they tended to in Europe and Asia. Farming happens everywhere, agriculture is an organized centralized affair.
@@EveryoneWhoUsesThisTV That's not really what you said in your first comment. I can't tell if you're defending the EE video or making your own points, because this video (and me) already invalidated THEIR points. Plenty of African polities (such as the Oyo, Mali, and Songhai empires, along with the Swahili city-states) produced agricultural surpluses that were frequently then traded. Also, definition of agriculture: "Agriculture is the science, art, or occupation of cultivating land, raising crops, and breeding livestock." Many societies throughout Africa practiced intensive agriculture; they just often had different methods when compared to farmers from Eurasia.
@@queegle99 EE video was about economics, it got plenty wrong in regard to history and agriculture, but I doubt they care much about anything but their main points about economics. I do endorse its main point that Sub-Saharan Africa couldn't sustain the kinds of empires and economies that Europe had, because of geography. To sustain the population of Rome, they imported vast amounts of food from all over the Mediterranean, that would be logistically impossible in Sub-Saharan Africa because of the geography.
It’s very refreshing to have someone actually give an unbiased factual and objective view on Africa. Far far too many people are just ok with disrespecting the entire continent and spreading lies thinking they’re telling some shocking truth I’m so sick of it lol
This Economics explained video was just face-palm. Though, some of the points could be argued to be more about degrees rather than 1 or 0, it was still a video that oversimplified African greater development too much. Africa has been home to some great civilizations and kingdoms. And though I could nit-pick and argue some points of issues here and there I think you did a very good overview of the issues with this video. You do know I really wonder why the Ge'ez Axumite word for wagon ,Saragallaa, existed and was used, if wheels were unknown to sub-saharan Africa (hmm really makes you wonder does it not?)😏
Thank you! I only addressed the arguments Economics Explained made that were predicated on clear historical misconceptions, so there's a lot in their video that I think is way more debatable, as you said, although I do feel they oversimplified throughout (partly as a consequence of drawing from Acemoglu and Robinson, who themselves overgeneralized from only a few examples, in my opinion, and partly as a consequence of simplifying Acemoglu and Robinson's arguments even more). There's a lot more that could be said about their full video, but my goal here was to focus on the arguments that were indisputably incorrect, while leaving more debatable points aside. That's why I also didn't tackle the question of "why is Africa still poor?" itself, because although I think I could provide a pretty strong answer to that question, it would be a matter of interpretation and argument rather than an explanation of historical fact.
Ironically, if it were not for me being portuguese and our education focusing in our role in colonialism, i likely would not know that africa had some of the richest and most important kingdoms in economic world history. Portugals colonialism was more based on controling forts and harbors in specific spots and cooperating with local kingdoms (before the victorian era), so we do learn alout about how its completely bullshit that africa had no civilizations or whatnot. They not only did, but they were equally advanced and rich as others. Europe also had shitty housing for 99% of people, only the rich in europe lived in great palaces and castles, the image we have of africa is the image we should have of 99% of peasants everywhere: people living in a farm whilst their rulers live in mansions.
I'm really loving the culture of youtube where we point out when supposedly educational content is incorrect. It really is forcing people to check their sources more becore publishing. Thank you for doing your part
It should be said that donkeys did not see much use until 1000 AD in West Africa, but this was not due to a lack of access, but a lack of necessity until the trans-Saharan trade was in full swing. Interestingly, donkeys also never made it to southern Africa, like horses. (edit: I changed this first part from a not correct critique but got a reply first - oops! sorry for anyone confused reading reply) I am not educated with regards to animal herding in East Africa or tsetse flies. Do you know why oxen were brought to southern Africa but not horses or donkeys? I'm not sure if it is a physiological thing or they weren't as essential. Thank you! Also thank you for speaking on boats! That just makes sense.
I brought up Donkeys as an example of an animal that was domesticated within Sub-Saharan Africa to illustrate the fact that domestic livestock didn't just flow into Africa from elsewhere, you are correct that they weren't used as widely within Sub-Saharan Africa as they were in Eurasia (though I'm not sure that their range "never reached most of the Sahel" as you said, I don't know their exact range but have read of them being used in West Africa as pack animals between the Sahel and the Sudan). Very good question! Eurasian cattle, sheep, and goats are all susceptable to trypanosomiasis, the disease spread by the tsetse, but certain breeds developed in Africa have mutations making them resistant to the parasite, and were thus able to cross the tsetse belt. This resistence is connected to smaller body size, so these breeds tend to be smaller than their Eurasian counterparts, and are often described as "dwarf" or "pygmy" breeds. There are also West African horse breeds with higher trypanosomiasis resistence than the Arabian breeds brought to the region from the north (which were popular as prestige mounts throughout the medieval and early modern period, but died at a much higher rate than local horses), but their resistance is only moderately higher, still too low to brave the depths of the tsetse belt.
@@SomasAcademy Yeah sorry about the first assumption! I was editing it as you replied, my bad. Thank you the information! I imagine the smaller sizes would be appreciated for dealing with heat too, but of course that goes for animals even above the tsetse belt, so clearly isn't the primary reason for the adaptation. Still very impressed by the horse breeding though - at least the ones I was around when I was little were very sensitive to everything, that must have taken some patient individuals to make it work.
This video is a good source of knowledge on many points that are misunderstood about history of the African continent. It does not, however, refute much of what EE portrays or even gets to ANY of the main issues being presented - namely, WHY Africa is still poor? EE is incorrect on a number of occasions and lax with resources to his claims, but instead of addressing the question you point a number of exceptions. Sure, trade existed throughout Sahara and Sahel region. Does this combat the idea that Sahara was (and is) a natural barrier for civilazations/empires, cultures and people to cross? Sure, agriculture did develop in the region, crops were domesticated. How does this relate to the point EE brings up - lack of abundant fertile soil? You can domesticate any crop in a small enough plot but in order to develop and sustain a large empire you need an overabudance of resources (not just from farming of course but nonetheless) which leads to expansions and development of culture. Even the wheel thing is taken here in the less charitable view. Yes, it is a popular misconseption stemming from colonial psyche, that Sub-Saharan Africa was "that" backwards that they "didn't invent the wheel". And while EE could've presented the argument better, the problem lies in the fact that wheel wasn't, in fact, adopted - even if it wasn't the best way for goods to be transported. In other words, inability to adopt the wheel due to geographical realities is still a hindrance that stifled the development. I've realized mid-video if the latter half didn't address the topic that would make this a total miss. Unfortunately, it did not.
It really doesn't. The arguments are very different. E.g., Jared Diamon would never argue that Africa had no independent agriculture, that's just a stupid argument (and the Americas, too, developed it independently), but rather that the need to spread north-south rather than east-west as in the Eurasian belt, limited speed with which agricultural techniques and innovations could spread (due to the need to adapt to new climatic zones along the way), which slowed down development. The video also mentions the TseTse belt, which would be one of the main factors in the materialist school of thought of Jared Diamond.
@@olenickel6013 Yes it does. We see agriculture had spread well in Africa. Jared Diamond is bullshit when you realise how easily agriculture spread from the Indus Valley to Southern India.
@@olenickel6013 The fact that crops spread north to south in Africa over the course of approximately 3k years (~2500 BCE origin point in the Niger basin (unless it originated earlier) to ~500 CE late-end estimate for its arrival in modern-day South Africa) while it took approximately 4k years to spread a similar distance east to west in Eurasia (~9700 BCE point of origin in the Fertile crescent, mid-6th millennium BCE arrival date in modern-day Spain) kinda does refute that argument of Diamond's lol. Diamond's assumption that Africa was "vertically oriented" was also an error itself; Africa is almost exactly as "tall" north-south as it is "wide" east-west. And while it's not as wide as all of Eurasia, it's still quite wide, wider than Europe. Diamond's ideas are not entirely without merit, but he overemphasized the role of geography in shaping societal development (it's only one of several similarly influencial factors, not the central factor), and made a lot of historical assumptions about areas he didn't know much about like Africa and the Americas (he makes clear, unambiguous historical errors in his recounting of the Spanish conquests of the Aztec and Inca Empires, for example, seemingly unaware that the Spanish forces had a number of Native Allies roughly commensurate with the forces of their opponents and unaware of how few Spaniards were equipped with guns or metal armor when he argues that these technologies were major factors in allowing the Spanish to take on supposedly much larger native forces). A lot of his arguments essentially consist of taking common historical misconceptions and providing reasonable geographic explanations for why they would be the case, without verifying that they actually were the case beforehand; this clearly reflects poorly on the explanatory value of a lot of his arguments, since if they can even work to explain things that weren't true, that implies a certain unfalsifiability to them that makes them scientifically invalid. I may make an additional video talking about his book at some point, since it's a lot to go over in a UA-cam comment.
@@SomasAcademy The Spanish conquistadors had tiny forces relative to their conquests. Saying they had native allies just raises the question of why those people allied with the Spanish and hadn't already taken over themselves. Admittedly, one can argue against the technological advantage being decisive based on the success of a conquistador in the Old World fighting opponents with gunpowder: Afonso de Albuquerque. Daniel Kokotajlo wrote about the reasons for their success over at Less Wrong.
@@clownpendotfart Again, this is a lot to go over in a UA-cam comment, I don't want to spend time litigating the history of the Spanish conquests of the Aztec and Inca empires or the concept of historical contingency. If and when I make a video discussing Diamond's book, I will try to keep your point in mind so that I can address it there, provided it isn't too much of an aside.
One thing that wasn't mentioned in your video is natural harbors. Africa has approximately 30,500 km of coastline. That might sound like a lot, but Norway, with only its west & southern coasts on the ocean, has between 25,000 & 83,000 km of coastlines, all depending on how they are measured. I would say that this was one of the largest impediments to long distance trade. Add to that the fact that many of the rivers that flow from the interior portions of the continent are difficult to navigate, requiring difficult portages from headlands to the various seas & oceans. Good video & thanks for the book recommendations.
A relative lack of coastline isn't necessarily an impediment to long distance trade - lots of natural harbors may encourage a society to focus more on maritime activity, but as mentioned in the video, parts of Africa still had strong maritime cultures, namely the East African coast. In West Africa, there are also quite a few lagoons along the coast where boat travel was common. However, current systems and rough waters discouraged Western Africans from developing a lot of maritime technology; those enclosed lagoons I mentioned were safe, but if you went too far out into the open ocean chances of capsizing were a lot higher, so Western Africans mostly hugged the coast. North of Senegambia, the prevailing currents also push south, making it difficult to sail northward; this largely prevented direct contact with Europe prior to the 15th century, when the Portuguese discovered that sailing directly west from the African coast would bring them to a circular current system allowing their ships to return to Europe. This is why when we're talking about trade between Sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the Old World prior to the Early Modern Period, the focus is all on overland trade across the Sahara and maritime trade along the eastern coast; the western coast just couldn't get involved until the discovery of that current system. As for navigable rivers, that issue is somewhat overstated; toward the mouths of several major rivers in Africa, the flow becomes rapid and therefore unnavigable, but that leaves quite a bit of navigable river further inland, and there was most likely a fair amount of travel by boat within the African interior. I think the origin of this idea that African rivers are particularly unnavigable may come from early European sources, since when they arrived by sea to the western coast Europeans would have first been greeted by the rapids around the mouths of these rivers, preventing them from navigating further inland and seeing what the rivers were like elsewhere. We know for sure that trade goods made their way from the Eastern coast of Africa to the Western one, so the interior was definitely more navigable than some people assume. Thank you for watching and commenting!
@@SomasAcademy Wow.Thanks for that reply. I admit that my knowledge of Sub-Saharan (or even Saharan) culture & history is very limited, but I am working on it. I tend to tackle things chronologically & for the last decade or so have been more focused on ancient history (both east & west) & the early development of civilizations. But, in my plodding way, I will get there. Just give me another decade or so & I might even break the BCE/CE curtain (though, I have no interest in Rome). Thanks, & I have subscribed. Keep up the great work.
Wow this was very interesting and informative. I love the level of detail you provided. I never knew Rhapta meant sewn. It’s sad misconceptions remain so strong even amongst researchers and big channels on this platform.
It seems like the MIT researchers made a decent argument. Economics Explained did not. Academia is continuing to decolonize. UA-cam? Not sure about their decolonization efforts or lack thereof.
There's something about a Australian spreading lies about Africa (intentionally or not) to a mainly english-speaking audience that leaves a really bitter taste in my mouth.
I've seen some of EE's videos. Some of their explanations seem kinda fascist to me. They're overly simplistic, convenient, disengaged of the territories's contexts, and filled with colonial and "westerncentric" biases 🙄🙄🙄🙄
I wouldn't go so far as to call them "kinda fascist" - I think that would require a few additional layers that aren't present in EE videos - but I agree that they have issues with oversimplification, convenient narratives, and biases. I think it's mostly a consequence of them putting out weekly videos for a general audience on topics that really need a lot more time to adequately discuss (paired with biases like, as you call it, "westerncentrism," that are simply common in a lot of fields, including Economics); it's a lot easier and more profitable to take one or two sources, skim them, and abbreviate their points into a 15-20 minute script, and move on than it is to provide adequate academic coverage to really any topic they cover.
I also don't think fascist is the right description. If their ideas have roots in 'bad ideology,' it's more leaning towards an Austrian school view of the world and economics or maybe just neoclassical view, mixed with that colonial and western centric bias you mentioned. What's more annoying to me is that his stuff isn't particularly well-researched, and he doesn't provide citations for his claims. I remember getting in a big argument with my brother about EE because he said "well Denmark has some of the highest wealth inequality in the world," and cited EE. I listened to the claim, chased up all possible sources, and in the end the only source I could find with their numbers was one I couldn't date to before the video came out, with several counterexamples from reputable sources. It may have even just been a simple transposition of digits error. But it's a foundational point to his claim, and it's entirely wrong. The rate of wealth inequality goes from being literally the worst in the world to being _below_ average in terms of wealth inequality. The fact that he made such a mistake is not itself damning- although that afaik the video is still up is pretty bad- but the fact that his other research ~~didn't exist~~ turned up nothing to support his claim and yet he still thought, "this is probably correct" is pretty damning. Did nothing he looked at not contradict this? Did he not read Danish sources on their own economic conditions? It feels very much like vibes-based economics.
@@SomasAcademy Hi Somas, Thanks for the answer. I agree with you about the severity of calling someone a "fascist." Maybe the inconvenience was that, as English isn't my first language, I didn't find a word for "facho." In Spanish, something or someone is "facho" when it resembles characteristics of fascism but without being openly or clearly fascist; it's like saying "there's something fishy with your ideas." So, if you know a suitable word in English, I'm open to learning. Having said that, I also agree that the misinformation comes primarily from the necessity of making videos for consumption. However, I still suspect this systematic lack of rigor isn't naive. From my humble pov, this narrative obeys the agenda of people behind this channel and seeks to perpetuate a narrative of the so-called "global south." Either way, having communicators objecting to the hegemonic narrative is always delightful. Thanks!
@@andresethorimn8608 Ah, that makes sense, and no worries. We don't have an exact equivalent in English; sometimes people do use "Fascist" in a very broad way, but this is often considered a hyperbolic misuse of the term rather than an accepted adjective.
@andresethorimn8608 the equivalent English word, your looking for is Fascy/Fashy, as in uncomfortably close to fascism, or bearing ideas that seem to come from bad ideology without being outright fascist
I was taken aback (and really appreciate)how thorough your counter arguments were. So many gaps in his videos were covered. It does make me wonder: how accurate have any of his other videos really been? I’m quite alarmed as a past viewer of his, to be honest.
Thank you, I'm glad you appreciated! I have seen a few response videos since making this that suggest a lot of EE's work is pretty dubious including in their actual area of expertise; I'd recommend the channel Money and Macro for a few examples.
FINALLY!!!! Someone who actually does their research I just don’t have the patience to fight it out with people anymore in the comments to correct mistakes
Its a well known fact that Economics Explained is not the best place to learn anything serious about economics, the channel regularly get panned on discussions on blogs and subreddits about economics. Just google around and you will find plenty of people dissecting his videos just like you just did and pointing out how wrong they are . Its not just about being factually incorrect , he also has some pretty strong bias which he doesn't even try to correct or account for when making a video on a topic which is unlike any professional economist would do. Needless to say he isn't a economist, just studying economics as undergrad in college doesn't actually make u an economist just like studying physics as undergrad didn't make me a physicist
This video is excellent! The level of ignorance about African history in the US is astounding (idk about Europe but I assume its just as bad). So many 'informed' explainers and journalistic pieces just regurgitate bogus assumptions like those you debunk from EE. Many of which are clearly the intellectual descendents of race science and 19th century racist anthropology. Your video essay is much appreciated!
Salute for educating those willing. Why Africa is poor is indeed complex, way before contact with colonisers, we were already trading, we mined, grew crops and kept animals, that is why Dias and Da Gama managed to get refreshments from Africans on their voyages. Thanks again.
As someone with an african immigrant father thanks alot for this video! It always feels racist to me when people try to „explain“ why africa is poor, as if any livestyle that isn’t industrialized cities is poor and worth of pity! And the real reason africa is poor to day is so very clearly exploitation and the slave trade history. Anyone who believes otherswise… i can’t even call that ignorant anymore and i also don’t want to call it stupid because it lifts the blame so i am calling it actually evil. Maybe my views are extreme but the injustice is so great i don’t have any other words
Nice to hear more from more historians from one's own Country or of Africa, but learned of this in backwoods school here in the States but that was in the 80s. Thanks for the recommendations of books need some new reads anyways. May you and yours stay well, and good blessings.
Thank you for making this video! I wanted to comment on the EE vid, but I felt like I’d be shouting into the void. You shouted louder and better than I.
The major economic point still missing - or not especially highlighted - was the immense portable wealth in the slave trade (less so of ivory, precious metals, gems, foodstuffs and clothing materials et al). Imports of African slaves to Western Europe dropped dramatically, but not completely, with the collapse of the slave-dependent industrial farming of the Roman empire .. it continued unabated to the East, and thus to the Arab conquerors in the richer parts of the decayed Helleno-Roman economy - and farther still to India and Indo-China, etc. Even with the Portuguese and Spanish adventurers going around the Arabic/ Moorish monopoly of that trade (slaves being part of goods on sale) relatively few sub-Saharan Africans came to the Post-Roman West other than as exotics .. thus little in the way of records survive of that reduced economic contact (and the exploitation of its seemingly unlimited resources). Only in fairly recent times - the late 19th and early 20th centuries - was direct exploitation by Europeans in the various economies across the African continent seen as a feasible option, and this 'interest' lasted little more than 80 years (at most 1870-1960). A return to indirect exploitation, via the local rulers, returned, and within less than 50 years once more became the accepted norm (1960-2000). Africa, as a whole, should and could be immensely wealthy - as it is indeed, in terms of resources, but accessible only for a tiny minority whether in the relatively advanced Islamic North, the still comparatively developed Christian South, and the vast swathe of largely ignored hinterland - now attracting chiefly resource hunters rather than invested traders (interested in saleable goods, perhaps including cheap 'servants'). :0/ ....
The Economics Explained video actually does talk about the slave trade a bit; I didn't cover this part of their video because, although still somewhat oversimplified and debatable, it was not based on fundamental misconceptions about history like the claims I did cover. The impacts of various slave trades on Africa could be a video all its own, as the situation differed between regions and across time, completely politically reshaping some regions and having only minor impacts on others. Maybe I'll cover this topic at some point, although I do find it a tad dark for my channel (researching slavery always leaves me feeling a bit depressed).
It seems more like an argument of semantics and just saying he's wrong because you want to assert your authority. You think the same thing regarding the Saharah as an ocean. @SomasAcademy
@@dl2839 Literally just watch the video, I didn't dispute the analogy because I simply disagreed with the wording, I disputed the analogy because of the point he used it to make. If he'd said "The Sahara was like an ocean filled with islands, and camel caravans acted like ships, regularly bringing things across this ocean by hopping between these islands" then we wouldn't be here. What he said was that the Saharan acted like an ocean by isolating Sub-Saharan Africa off from the rest of the Old World, which, as I establish in the video, is wildly inaccurate. That was my argument, not semantics.
@@comradekapibarchik7997 It depends on the body of water and the types of boat you have. If it's calm, then water can always be more efficient, as boats can get a lot bigger than any land-based transportation method, and thus carry a lot more per trip. If the water is very rough and your boat isn't sufficiently large, heavy, and resilient, on the other hand, that can cancel out the advantages, since if your boat flips then none of those goods are reaching their destination.
We need more of this unbiased African content to counter all the misconceptions peddled out there. May Soma's Academy become the digital version of Timbuktu University.
>Sees Economics Explained has uploaded a new video. >"It's not just racist stereotypes, we have an actual academic source!" >Watches the video. >It's just racist stereotypes.
Great video. I always find it mind-boggling to hear people who clearly don't know anything about African history quote ideas from periods where people were openly racist, as if it's not at all racist. Saying Africans did not have the wheel, when literally the Garamantes depict themselves, riding chariots is mind-boggling. The nubians depict themselves openly with wheels, along with the aksumites. Rock art all throughout the sahara shows brown and dark brown people riding horses traversing the Sahara, yet somehow it was a barrier? Its like no new information penetrates their bubble past the year 1900. They talk about only mud huts, when literally you have many stone ruins all throughout Africa from all different periods. You have to constantly play whackamole with these people as when you put down one, 5 more popup somewhere else.
Thank you! Not to disagree with your comment, but I also want to point out that even societies that did build their houses out of mud are no less worthy of respect than those that built with stone, earthen construction comes with some great advantages over some other materials like helping to maintain a constant, comfortable indoor temperature in hot areas! My mother had a neighbor who lived in a mud hut back in India, and she preferred to hang out at their house because it was much cooler during the day. The way people talk about mud huts as if they're a mark of cultural inferiority is purely a cultural bias - it doesn't take more cultural sophistication to build in stone, it just takes large stone deposits (which many parts of Africa didn't have) and a cultural preference for that material over other options!
@SomasAcademy not a disagreement at all. I just find people's ignorance to say that Africa has nothing but mudhuts, when literally you have stone structures in Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, and Axum in full view to be quite silly. In addition to the many ruins all over Africa. It's just a testament to how one can not know anything, yet talk about a subject as if they know even the bare minimum.
UPDATE: Economics Explained replied! See their comment here: x.com/somas_academy/status/1792257264377614656
Citations:
[1] McDougall, E. Ann. Review of Research in Saharan History, by James L. A. Webb Jr. The Journal of African History 39, no. 3 (1998): 467-80. www.jstor.org/stable/183363
[2] Fenn, Thomas R. “Contacts Between West Africa and Roman North Africa: Archaeometallurgical Results from Kissi, Northeastern Burkina Faso.” Crossroads / Carrefour Sahel. Cultural and Technological Developments in First Millennium BC / AD West Africa. Développements Culturels Et Téchnologiques Pendant Le Premier Millénaire BC / AD Dans l'Afrique De l'Ouest, 2009.
[3] Cooper, Julien. (2012). Reconsidering the Location of Yam. Bulletin of Latin American Research. 48. www.researchgate.net/publication/334208155_Reconsidering_the_Location_of_Yam
[4] Singleton, Brent D. “African Bibliophiles: Books and Libraries in Medieval Timbuktu.” Libraries & Culture 39, no. 1 (2004): 1-12. www.jstor.org/stable/25549150.
[5] Samuel, Isaac. “The Colonial Myth of ‘sub-Saharan Africa’ in Medieval Islamic Geography: The View from Egypt and Bornu.” The colonial myth of “Sub-Saharan Africa” in medieval Islamic geography: the view from Egypt and Bornu., February 11, 2024. www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-colonial-myth-of-sub-saharan?publication_id=448231&post_id=141551376&isFreemail=true&r=2rxwd9&L.
[6] Levi, Janice R. “Beyond the Saharan Cloak: Uncovering Jewish Identity from Southern Morocco and throughout the Sahara.” Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies 39, no. 2 (2016). doi.org/10.5070/f7392031104.
[7] Cartwright, Mark. "Swahili Coast." World History Encyclopedia. Last modified April 01, 2019. www.worldhistory.org/Swahili_Coast/.
[8] Haour, A., Moffett, A. Global Connections and Connected Communities in the African Past: Stories from Cowrie Shells. Afr Archaeol Rev 40, 545-553 (2023). doi.org/10.1007/s10437-023-09546-5
[9] Glémin, Sylvain, and Thomas Bataillon. “A Comparative View of the Evolution of Grasses under Domestication.” New Phytologist 183, no. 2 (June 9, 2009): 273-90. doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8137.2009.02884.x. ;
Tadele, E., Hibistu, T. Empirical review on the use dynamics and economics of teff in Ethiopia. Agric & Food Secur 10, 40 (2021). doi.org/10.1186/s40066-021-00329-2
[10] Scarcelli, Nora, Philippe Cubry, Roland Akakpo, Anne-Céline Thuillet, Jude Obidiegwu, Mohamed N. Baco, Emmanuel Otoo, et al. “Yam Genomics Supports West Africa as a Major Cradle of Crop Domestication.” Science Advances 5, no. 5 (May 3, 2019). doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaw1947. ; D’Andrea, A. Catherine, Amanda L. Logan, and Derek J. Watson. “Oil Palm and Prehistoric Subsistence in Tropical West Africa.” Journal of African Archaeology 4, no. 2 (2006): 195-222. www.jstor.org/stable/43135404.
[11] Fuller, Dorian & Denham, Tim & Arroyo-Kalin, Manuel & Lucas, Leilani & Stevens, Chris & Qin, Ling & Allaby, Robin & Purugganan, Michael. (2014). Convergent evolution and parallelism in plant domestication revealed by an expanding archaeological record. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 111. 10.1073/pnas.1308937110.; News Staff. “Earliest Evidence of Domesticated Sorghum Discovered.” Sci.News: Breaking Science News, September 28, 2017. www.sci.news/archaeology/earliest-evidence-domesticated-sorghum-05271.html. ; Dunham, Will. Genome study reveals prehistoric Ethiopian origins of Coffee | Reuters. www.reuters.com/science/genome-study-reveals-prehistoric-ethiopian-origins-coffee-2024-04-16/.
[12] Havinden, M. A. “The History of Crop Cultivation in West Africa: A Bibliographical Guide.” The Economic History Review 23, no. 3 (1970): 532-55. doi.org/10.2307/2594622. (Note: This is an older source, and its content is outdated; it discusses a debate between several hypotheses on the origins of African agriculture which has since been settled)
[13] Soukopova, Jitka. “Prehistoric Colonization of the Central Sahara: Hunters versus Herders and the Evidence from the Rock Art.” Expression, 2020. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002995.
[14] Crombé, P., Aluwé, K., Boudin, M. et al. New evidence on the earliest domesticated animals and possible small-scale husbandry in Atlantic NW Europe. Sci Rep 10, 20083 (2020). doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-77002-4
[15] Kimura, Birgitta, Fiona B. Marshall, Shanyuan Chen, Sónia Rosenbom, Patricia D. Moehlman, Noreen Tuross, Richard C. Sabin, et al. “Ancient DNA from Nubian and Somali Wild Ass Provides Insights into Donkey Ancestry and Domestication.” Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 278, no. 1702 (July 28, 2010): 50-57. doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2010.0708.
[16] Sadr, Karim. “Livestock First Reached Southern Africa in Two Separate Events.” PloS one vol. 10,8 e0134215. 21 Aug. 2015, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0134215 ; Marshall, Fiona & Hildebrand, Elisabeth. (2002). Cattle Before Crops: The Beginnings of Food Production in Africa. Journal of World Prehistory. 16. 99-143. 10.1023/A:1019954903395.
[17] Law, Robin. (1980). Wheeled transport in pre-colonial West Africa. Africa, 50(03), 249-262. doi:10.2307/1159117
[18] Chandler, Graham. “Why Reinvent the Wheel?” AramcoWorld, 2017. www.aramcoworld.com/Articles/July-2017/Why-Reinvent-the-Wheel.
[19] Samuel, Isaac. “Roads and Wheeled Transport in African History.” African History Extra, December 24, 2023. www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/roads-and-wheel-transport-in-africa? - Citation 10
[20] Samuel, Isaac. “Roads and Wheeled Transport in African History.” African History Extra, December 24, 2023. www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/roads-and-wheel-transport-in-africa?. - Citation 17
[21] Samuel, Isaac. “Textile Trade and Industry in the Kingdom of Kongo: 1483-1914.” African History Extra, July 16, 2023. www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/textile-trade-and-industry-in-the.
This video reminds me when From Nothing made a response video to AlternativeHistory Hub a couple of years ago.
From Nothing also made a similar response video to Alternative History Hub.
hmm are your sources not per claim? i'd reccomend doing tjat if you can
@@Somebodyherefornow In the video I feature numbers in the top right corner to show which sources correspond to which claims. Some number include multiple sources in instances where I make multiple claims drawing from different sources in quick succession. I included only one citation of each source with the on-screen citation coming at the end of the part where I primarily drew from that source, rather than citing the same source repeatedly for each claim I drew from that source, because this is a UA-cam video rather than a scholarly essay, and the formatting makes those types of citations more difficult to incorporate than in-text citations.
@@SomasAcademyi may be blind😂, sorry
white on white text with black border...
Common issue with any study or research about Africa is considering Africa as one entity
Very true! Acemoglu and Robinson cite a few examples of African countries in their paper, and their analysis may very well be valid for these examples, but I think it's a huge mistake to regard any of them as representative of the whole continent. To make broad, overarching statements about a body made up of many individual countries, you must at the very least demonstrate that your claims hold true to a large portion of those countries (and ideally demonstrate it for ALL of them), including those that are physically seperated to ensure any trends you're establishing are actually continent-spanning rather than specific to a smaller region.
EXACTLY!
Correct!!!
@@SomasAcademy agreed.... we are home to more than a 1000 languages.... and most of them are still undocumented.....
I do wish more poeple travelled to Africa to avoid the stereotypes.
it's a typical Americo Euro POV
it's a blanket sense, I'm a Filipino and I was called not Asian because my name is Spanish
Sadly that youtube channel tends to make absurd mistakes. As a European, I noticed the same tendency when they speak about the EU. Full of bias, simplifications and plain mistakes
Good to know the misinformation is equal opportunity 😅😅
As a European I've noticed that too. Seems to fail to understand that the EU is a trade union and not a second United States... Notified a lot of falsifies and simplifications. Many assumptions made that would only make sense if you view all of Europe (and not just the EU) as a single entity, which is daft. You can hate the EU, that's fine, but don't go around treating it like it's something it's not.
@@Stettafire The EU is not just a trade union. Something like Asean or Mercosur would be more described like that. The EU is a political and economic union (and rapidly military union) with the structure of a confederation and a degree of supranational sovereignty. It is halfway to being a country, but yes it is far from the level of the US (though I will say it is more integrated than the first US constitution, the Articles of Confederation).
@@falsevacuum4667 It's not really hard to be more binding than the Articles of Confederation, considering it said something like "united in common friendship" or the like. A parking ticket is more binding.
It's not economic union too. For last few years many policies are to be same which comes under political union@@Stettafire
I’m glad your channel exists. As a Nigerian American I remember trying to find videos about African history back in the early 2010s and finding nothing but misinformation and Eurocentric propaganda about Africa. The west has a huge problem when it comes to understanding Africa and it shows. I remember having to correct a high school geography teacher, that Egypt isn’t the most populous country in Africa.
Thank you so much! I had similar issues back when I was first getting into African history; so much of the stuff you can find about African history on the internet, even today, is complete nonsense, whether Eurocentric propaganda, conspiracy theories, or simply myths repeated by people with no desire or ability to verify them. I am so glad to have found some of the channels and videos I recommend in the description, because they gave me the foundations to get really interested in African history, and eventually study West African history as a graduate student, which introduced me to a ton of academic sources that are unfortunately very inaccessible for most people! I want to make some of this information more accessible to people by covering it in future videos. I hope that in the near future African history will be at least as familiar in the US as Asian history, and that massive misconceptions like "Africans never developed agriculture" or "Africans were cut off from the rest of the old world until the 16th century" are as inconceivable as saying similar things about Asia (though this is probably gonna require some school curriculum changes, not just people on UA-cam trying our best to share this information with people who never learned it in school lol).
@@SomasAcademy THANK YOU
@@SomasAcademyEurocentric propaganda is a myth.
Western views on African history) tend to just be propaganda of one form or another (Wakanda Utopia from the Left, Stone Age Savages from the racists). Few people care about what it was actually like.
as a person of african descent, thank you for dispelling all the myths even a five year old from senegal can debunk.
Thank you lol, these ideas are surprisingly and unfortunately common in the west. I hope this video helps to change that, so that we can move on from stuff everyone should know to the more interesting stories of African history that I've covered in my videos on Benin and Wagadu, and hope to cover many more of in the future.
It’s a shame your voices are being overridden by nonsense when it’s told through a confident Anglo accent
@@kevinxu3892 Aussie accent :)
Senegal is one of the most arrogant and yet poor and disfunctioning country of the coast. The country will fall in the next decade if it keeps going at current pace.
They even have a scientist who believes Egyptians were related to Black Africans 😆
@@SomasAcademy thank you. I'm a history enthusiast: currently teach History in Nigeria and planning to start on my YT channel. I was surprised to hear that people thought the Sahara desert cut everything off: truly they are erasing the Trans Saharan Trade.
As the child of an African history professor, I can't really begin to express how much I appreciate that someone is taking the time to do this work. So, thank you!
Oh my goodness, thank you so much, this really means a lot. I always try my best, and look forward to making more detailed African history videos in the future. I'm glad you enjoyed the video, and shoutout to your African history professor parent!
@SomasAcademy Hi Soma
All that being said, after having made a rundown of the issues that you had with the analysis in the EE video, it now begs the question, what do you think the causes are of the current economic state of the continent as a whole? What do you believe are the most weighty circumstances behind them?
Despite the content of the EE video, the opening context or the reason the question can be asked is still a genuine question.
It is why people would choose and gravitate to the video in the first place, because they are wondering about that question themselves. They see the modern day results (or relative lack of modern day results) and are looking for a historically accurate and context defined explanation. They are looking for an "all things considered" diagnosis, let's say, of the relative economic lag of the majority of the continent right now.
As someone that definitely seems to pride themselves on having the history right, how would you put your answer into context, knowing that other places and countries and continents have achieved more *relative*, let's say, stability and success? The continent is not a monalith, but that also leaves an observer to the task of making sense of how it is still mostly a state in need of development as a whole and that it's still that way for nearly each country despite their differences and their...very hard to argue against...similarities.
Essentially, once you have a chance, that is the video that I would like to see from you on this topic. I have no reason to disagree with many of your assertions in this video per say, but I think putting out a hopefully comprehensive, within reason ofc, look into why things are where they are and what people are missing about how the current context could be used towards widespread economic prosperity and widespread stability would help put a button on this discussion in a helpful way.
@@Hanover-f8m Thank you for your comment! In this video I stuck to factual corrections since those are much easier to present and support, but I do intend to cover your requested topic in a future video, once I have sufficient time to research and cover the topic in appropriate depth.
"What is your source."
>"Here is the one single source I used."
"Okay I read it and it contradicts most of the things you said."
>"🗿"
What?
And you've of course read this source and aren't relying on this creator's statements?
@@agentofchaos7456 🗿
@@MagicBrianTricks 🗿
The wheel thing comes from Murray Rothbard. It’s a staple of racist and libertarian discourse on Africa. Modern economics (neoclassical) is a straight up religion.
Basically it comes down to two things necessity and environment, for example why didn’t Europeans adopt camels when they proved to be more effective than the wheel because they could carry a lot, easier to produce and were cheaper to maintain, you also don’t need a road for camels it was just the superior option.
It’s the same reason why the wheel didn’t see much use in Africa it was the environment, camels don’t do well in European environment and many Africans preferred camels because they were honestly the better choice.
Also the wheel was a secondary method of transportation and trade in Europe the first has always been by boat both river and coastal. It was faster and you could carry more it just made more sense.
And a lot of African states did that they used rivers for the same reason. Also many Sub Saharan Africans did use the wheel, both Ethiopia and Somalia did.
And others didn’t because they had no real need for it and that’s not a reflection of their technological development it’s a example of their environment.
I don't believe EE got it from Rothbard, and I don't believe Rothbard came up with it. And neoclassical economists typically don't care for Rothbard, who would be considered "heterodox" for thinking econ should consist of verbal logic rather than math & empirics.
@@jonathanviera1589 The video clearly explained that the wheel declined in Europe once the Roman empire was no longer around to maintain roads. This points to a political/institutional explanation: the questions of why there aren't wheeled transports and why there aren't roads go together.
@@clownpendotfart and even with wheels Europe still primarily used boats by river and boats because it was the better option. Africans did have roads and probably could have used the wheel more but why waste time and energy when boats and pack animals are readily available, easier and fit the environment better.
It's very normal to talk about the "hand of the market", and definitely not a mystical pile of shite.
It's unfortunate that so many big channels are just clickbait machines
That's how they got big and stay that way: clickbaity thumbnails, neatly packaged and mass produced content. The audiovisual equivalent of a happy meal.
It's not clickbait, it's imperial core propaganda. It's providing a bunch of nonsense arguments to avoid engaging with the history of european imperialism and extractivism
Most of them are biased. Just look at how all the big channels cover the Genocide in Gaza
@@marchantofcabbage3517 oof! That they never want to get into. Mention the Balfour declaration and they pretend it's not a thing.
@@gabrielladias420not only European even. American too. Don't wait for EE to ever criticize anything in capitalism. The guy is a straight up propagandist that poses as centrist.
Thank you. A lot of UA-camrs give their thoughts on topics they are unqualified to speak about. I'm a civil engineer. One UA-camr claimed the bridge collapse in Baltimore was from failing infrastructure when the truth is that bridge wasn't designed to withstand a cargo boat hitting it's support column.
That's baffling, you see the boat strike the bridge and it immediately collapses, the number one hypothesis for the bridge collapse is right there, haha. I'd love to see what a bridge "designed" to withstand that level of strike would look like.
But the reality is that our infrastructure is crumbling. These things aren’t mutually exclusive.
@@Jc-yu2ot He didn't say they were mutually exclusive. Just pointed out that their correlation doesn't imply one caused the other.
@@MoneyGist that’s stupid lmao
@@Jc-yu2ot no its not, thats like saying the Twin Towers fell because New York's infrastructure was crumbling and badly maintained.
If feel like the central issue here is the notion that Africa is uniquely poor, which means it's poverty must be rooted in something inherent to the African continent.
One must only compare the development of the Chinese GDP per capita with, say, the Kenyan one to realize that African poverty is not all that exceptional.
And this is China we're talking about. Try arguing that their geographical conditions consigned them to poverty and people will rightfully call you an idiot.
China has provinces that do worse than Kenya despite better natural resources, or do better than Zambia despite receiving less aid than Zambia in the 1960s. Both are big patches of land with local economies in conflict of interests.
China has provinces that do worse than Kenya despite better natural resources, or do better than Zambia despite receiving less aid than Zambia in the 1960s. Both are big patches of land with local economies in conflict of interests.
@@OlivierVerdys so when china invests in foreign countries that is colonialism but when france orchestrates coups and policy changes in their former colonies that is fine or what exactly is this stupid comment. China if anything is employing imperialism in a very "light" way. They expect to gain things from their investments, they don't own the factories or the infrastructure they build for the countries.
@@hatinmyselfiscool2879 now take what I say with a grain of salt but i'm pretty sure that most of the infrastructure build by china in other countries is atleast Leased to them for like 30 years or something , if not owned by them directly.
Regional poverty in China can be related to their geography. And the geography combination with poor leadership allowed their rulers to cut the away from world trade and capitalism resulting in poverty.
What is your point?
Finally the algorithm sending me sense instead of nonsense. Subscribed.
Thank you!
I was confused about the fertile lands part of that video
My native Uganda has A LOT of fertile soil being basically surrounded by lakes and rivers year round except in the northeastern third
It's even reflected in our rapid population rise from 5 million at independence 60 years ago to 50 million now in spite of the the numerous civil instabilities and wars
Why we're poor is more due to all our leaders not knowing what the fuck they're doing. We don't work with the leaders we vote to advance the country. We vote the ones least likely to fuck up our lives (the ones with the guns so they don't do a stupid and military coup) and try to work around them (in a business, law and justice things)
With varying results
Yeah, African poverty is a complex issue that varies from country to country, but in general I would say colonial and post-colonial political factors are exponentially more significant than pre-colonial or geographical factors.
That would require western economists to acknowledge the role their precious capitalism plays which is far too much when you can just be racist.
@@Bob-bs9okwouldn’t it require them to acknowledge corruption and rather than it being a direct failure of capitalism?
@@-nyte2063 the corruption is just a symptom of the root issue. Capitalism requires the expansion of markets and exploitation for ever increasing profits, to do so they must take resources from the imperial periphery. Supporting corrupt politicians serves that purpose.
@@Bob-bs9ok but all else being equal corruption would still lead to these same issues regardless of the economic model used to drive a society.That capitalism is a factor in these individuals motivations is not as important as the fact that they would enrich themselves by any means, countries with communist ideology namely the ussr and the ccp both have had issues with corruption. All I’m saying is that corruption seems to be the root problem here which exacerbates most other problems encountered m.
Soma DESTROYS Economics Explained with FACTS and LOGIC.
Really original joke you have
@@luisfilipe2023some one is angry
Lmao
Yes, using his laser eyes and the fact that his wife is a doctor!
Get Rekt!
And the idea, and the idea, and the idea!
I am an Afro-American, and I was already sighing when I heard the first point about the supposed isolation of sub-Saharan Africa. I recently talked about this assumption in my art class that was implicit in one of our readings about how world peace could be reached through artistic sharing and preservation. The author only focused on the Silk Road linking Europe, North African and West Asia, and East Asia; so as the only person of black African descent in my class, I felt the need to question the place of sub-Saharan Africa and (indigenous) America in his view of world peace. I mentioned the Trans-Saharan trades and the Indian Ocean trades to show how sub-Saharan Africa was well-connected to the rest of the Old World art history. My ancestors came from the western Sahelian, Sudanian, and Guinean regions of sub-Saharan Africa and many aspects of Afro-American culture have roots in the products of the Trans-Saharan trade such as music (see banjo/folk lute and indigenous African fiddling traditions) and spirituality (Islam was not an uncommon faith amongst the enslaved and even impacted the magico-religious practices of the non-Muslim majority; it also provided a means of literacy for enslaved Africans in the Americas who could write in Arabic or Ajami). And to talk about agriculture, the indigenous knowledge of the sub-Saharan Africans with crops was a driving factor in the trafficking of certain groups to the American colonies!! Indigo and rice production in South Carolina and Georgia (where I have family from), for example, motivated the importation of Africans from the region where they were already engage in such business!! As an descendant of enslaved Africans in the United States, the idea that agriculture was not popular in Africa is very insulting to my history. Thank you so much for making this video and setting the record straight!!
I'm glad you enjoyed, thank you for your comment!
I mean… wasn’t like one of the main reasons why the Empire of Mali was so strong was due to its exportation of salt? Like history proves the idea of sub-Saharan Africa being like another planet to be wrong.
@@flyingsquirrell6953 It had a central position in the Salt-Gold trade, where salt from the Sahara was transported south to the Sahel, Sudan, and beyond in West Africa, and gold was transported north to the Sahara and Eurasia. So yes, Mali grew wealthy off of imports and exports across wide ranging trade networks.
@@flyingsquirrell6953 Even Ice age caveman in Europe have been snown to have had long-distance trade so this doesn't mean anything in regards to civilization
I am curious on this first point, how does crossing the Sahara desert stack up to other long distance travel?
Would the supposed ease of crossing these routes be any more dangerous than travelling around say modern day UK or other parts of Europe?
Was it any more deadly or of similar danger from the elements?
I only wonder as the saraha was such a common 'deadly inescapable Environment' trope in nature documentaries and other media.
thank you
the agriculture point is so funny to me because my dad’s side of the family is full of farmers and i’ve never heard anything about it being super hard to farm there
Yeah, it's true that some parts of Africa have pretty poor soil quality which can cause difficulties with industrial scale planting (especially monocropping), but it's neither true across the entire continent nor a serious enough situation to prevent farming on the scale most people were doing it for most of history!
@@EveryoneWhoUsesThisTV The reason Africa isn't known for those things is because people don't bother to research it, because it certainly had them lmao, see the book recommendations in the description and my previous videos on West African history. I really wish people would stop assuming that because they don't know anything about African history, that means there was nothing there, it gets really frustrating as an Africanist.
@@EveryoneWhoUsesThisTV It was certainly pretty sprawling, yeah. I wouldn't call it "based on agriculture" because that would be a strange characterization, but obviously it produced enough food to sustain large cities like Gao, Timbuktu, Djenne, etc. and populations that did not farm to support themselves like ironworkers, nobles, griots, weavers, merchants, scholars, etc. Large urban populations also existed throughout all other parts of Africa.
@@EveryoneWhoUsesThisTV ...It was also impossible to replicate in Europe for most of history, the Roman Empire was pretty historically unique. Anyway, you've shifted the goalpost from "it was impossible to build large cities with specialization in Africa" - an unambiguously factually incorrect statement since Africa had many large cities and plenty of specialization - to "it was impossible to build empires on the same scale as the largest contiguous Empire in European history in Africa." I don't think you're arguing in good faith after that kind of fallacy, so I won't be engaging with you any further.
@@EveryoneWhoUsesThisTV Never happened? There are dozens of very sizeable cities and towns on the Swahili coast. But there was no agriculture there - these towns sit on mostly parched and confined coastal islands, and don't have the space or water to feed themselves. Feeding these large city populations depended entirely on steady consistent trade with Bantu agrarian grain & meat producers on the interior highlands of the mainland. There was enough inland agriculture & trade in East Africa to maintain quite high city populations on the Swahili coast. It is very comparable to the situation of many Mediterranean cities, notably in Greece, Italy and the Levant, who were also constrained in confined coastal locations, and also similarly depended on far-flung food supplies trade to maintain their urban populations.
I've made this joke before, and I'll make it again,
Merchants: We need infrastructure for trade!
Camels aggresively: We *are* the infrastructure!
i don't thnk i get the joke, that's more of just a historical tidbit
It's funny because it's true😂😂
Sumpter animals can move goods but ships fossil fuel, wind or human powered are going move goods at much less cost. Look at the cost of modern goods transportation. A container ship can move a shipping container for $0.92 per statute mile, a train $2.75 per statue mile, and a truck about $8.00 per statue mile. The Sahara Desert was and is an impediment to trade where as trade on the Mediterranean Sea meant the province of Africa were considered the breadbaskets of the Roman Republic.
@@eddydoglegwell in large inland regions without large rivers then ship transport really isn't an option. The best available option would be the camel in such situations
Economics explained only ever uses basic economics to describe the complexity of nations. Nothing of value is gained by watching the channel unless you've never learned basic economics.
I don't think he even has a degree in Economics.
@@vyvianalcott1681I have seen him allude to his experience in college courses, and demonstrates familiarity with how college-level courses are taught. It is likely he has a Bachelor's, but technically it is possible he has further education or dropped out. Sorry, that's all I know
@@connormcgee4711 I looked it up, he does have a degree which is kind of even more embarrassing. I wonder what his GPA was lol
Not really he obviously can’t go too deep since most people aren’t econ grads but his analysis is often supported by advanced economic theory at least it was when I watched it
@@luisfilipe2023 No, if you're actually a qualified educator you should be able to explain advanced concepts or at least allude to them so we know where you're getting your information from. He doesn't do that because he's a hack, like most economists.
In the Western imagination, Africa is stereotyped as a continent plagued by corrupt dictators, with the supposition being that Africans are perhaps too "primitive" to appreciate the virtues of Western-style democracy. But the truth is that ever since the end of colonialism, Africans have been actively prevented from establishing democracies. The legacy of strongman rule in Africa is largely a Western invention, not an indigenous proclivity. Western powers have thwarted countless attempts at real independence, which casts a rather ironic light on the West's historical image as a beacon of democracy and popular sovereignty.
If you ever try to suggest that poor countries are poor because they have been disadvantaged by an imbalanced global economy, someone is almost certain to respond by pointing the finger at corruption instead. ...For anyone that isn't aware of the history of colonialism, unequal treaties, structural adjustment and trade rules, this seems as good an explanation as any.
...It is important that we expand our conception of corruption to include illicit outflows, anonymous companies, secrecy jurisdictions... ...And yet the mainstream definition of corruption does not encompass them... ...Instead, the corruption narrative diverts our attention away from these exogenous problems and places the burden of blame on developing countries themselves.
~ From "The Divide: A Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions"
Whiny Neo-Marxism that try’s to blame all problems on Europeans, yet never acknowledging the positive contributions either.
Western colonial powers had the audacity to strip Africa of its art and resources, and then turned around and said that Africa lacked art and culture
The strongman rule is not a western inventions but an african thing. Although Africans are able to establish democratic regimes which last, it has generally failed because Africans are very tribalistic and rarely vote for people who aren't from their tribes. And the ruling ethnicity is a minority, it has no interest in democracy since the majority wouldn't vote for them, even they have great ideas.
I have really found a gem of a Channel here, so many intelligent and well articulated people here. This comment just add to it. Indeed we are really getting there.
I have a question. I was taught that the wave of decolonisation in Africa following WW2, had the effect of creating sudden power vacuums which were then exploited by bad actors. The argument was that the West, having restricted access to any form of training and policy education, should have stayed for 20-30 years, reintroduced political education to these countries, fostered a new generation of policymakers who were local to the areas, set them up for success, and removed more slowly.
Then when African countries did ask for economic advice from the West, the advice was to grow cash crops, and we all know how that turned out.
Where would this fit (if at all) within the paragraph you quoted?
I agree corruption is a poor excuse for poverty. I think poverty fosters corruption and acceptance of/resignation around corruption, not the other way around. We think of corruption as something that doesn't happen here, but we have an unbroken tradition of viewing the law as legitimate. We are just better at making things legal, which means the corruption is restricted to those familiar with the law, or those who can make the law. But the inner tendency is the same.
I was saying to some Indonesian friends the other day, we have just as much corruption here in the West, we just hide it better under layers of respectability.
"They just filled the gaps from sloppy reading with their own preconceptions"
Like all neoclassical economists.
I was recently studying Zimbabwe land reform and its incredible to see economists talk through the evidence and then conclude something completely bizarre because it fits their preconceived understanding, even when it conflicts with the evidence.
Sounds like an interesting topic for study, can you suggest any sources if I want to follow suit?
@@SomasAcademy I emailed you some sources!
Who else here got into economics, trade and politics through history
Me!
It’s hard to get Into these subjects without history. If you try you get bogus economics videos like this one that this video criticizes. Sadly people often fall for these kinds of videos because it simply shows what the majority already believes and doesn’t disprove any misconceptions.
I've never understood how people dislike history. Sure it may not be the most lucrative straight out, but you learn so much about life in general and it helps even understand the modern day
@@Petey-se1lo It’s because it’s often taught very badly in schools. It’s sometimes the teachers fault but often it’s also hard filter out what is important in class since it’s impossible to go through world history with the amount of hours the subject gets making the subject very difficult to teach effectively in a class setting.
I even went to Business school, but I only start understanding it properly after get deep into history.
Ive seen soo many EE debunked videos from so many different UA-camrs with specialties in different areas that now I wouldn’t believe EE if they told me the sky was blue without getting independent and securely sited verification
They're like 1984 indeed lol
It's not much of a debunked video, like when EE says the Sahara is like an ocean and Soma says it's more like a sea. EE is just making a point about how it makes trade harder which it does especially with Europe, doesn't mean there aren't examples of African trade with other areas, especially with the Middle East through the Horn of Africa. Still a good history video, and EE makes a good economics video.
Watching videos with a political bias so as to attempt to confirm your own doesn't say anything about any info or misinfo that was relied, but only about your very own quality as a an impartial listener
As a South African always told (confidently) by Afrikaans descendants of Dutch settlers that 1) bantu people arrived at the same time/after the Dutch settled therefore we have equal claim, only the Khoi tribes were here and 2) we had no trade/technology/were taught to farm/were "civilised" by colonisers, despite archeological evidence to the contrary (despite the destruction of others), i REALLY appreciate this video.
I'd love for you to do a video debunking far right South African talking points, but I'm definitely saving this one for future reference. Excellent work with reference.
Thank you! I probably won't be directly debunking any narratives like that, because I don't want my channel to be percieved as political, but if I ever cover South African history in the future I'll definitely discuss when the Bantu peoples arrived in the region and what their civilizations were like in Southern Africa.
I don't think that point is entirely groundless.
Yeah, it’s not like there’s no truth to it.
The common Afrikaner claim that the Nguni/Tswana/etc were equal to monkeys is definitely bigoted, but you guys weren’t as advanced as Kongo or Ethiopia or West Africa, let alone the Dutch colonizers.
I tried to listen to Economics Explaind's interview with a "specialist" on Spotify. In the description of that podcast, Africa was referred to as a country. 🗿
One day, I'm going to do a takedown of Jared Diamond. He seems to be a prominent source of these mindsets...
I listened to the whole interview, and found Acemoglu - the guy they interviewed - so much more knowledgeable and respectable than the video would suggest. He was even very clearly trying to steer them away from the Diamond school of geographical determinism (even though his alternative leans into institutional determinism, with the same overgeneralizations and other issues of any form of determinism). They just... didn't listen to him.
@@SomasAcademyI can at least respect the latter mindset. It tends to come from Africans who are frustrated about the poor state of présent politics, but I find it often is projected onto the past in an anachronistic way. But yeah, I haven't a clue what Economics Explained was thinking with this video. Feels like he wanted to make something he knew he didn't have to research as an easy "give me". Lots of those big "general explained" channels seem to have a penchant for messing up on Africa. Still thinking to how a large creator was arguing in his comments that Africans lacked ships.
It's almost kind of funny how people desperately want to explain recent history with deep geographical roots. Like trying to explain why Africa is poor in the immediate aftermath of European colonialism by talking about the Sahara is like trying to explain Western European poverty after the fall of the Western Roman Empire by talking about ice age glaciation patterns.
@@hedgehog3180 No. It really isn't. Africa's relative paucity of useful rivers and the Sahara desert being quite obviously more difficult to travel than most other areas of the world are not irrelevant to Africa's economic state, nor is the native fertility level of the soil before industrial fertilizers. Just because trade caravans could, and did, travel across the Sahara, doesn't mean that sub-saharan Africa wasn't significantly more isolated than it would have been if that whole area hadn't been so inhospitable. The fact remains that Africa was economically underdeveloped relative to Asia, Europe and arguably even some parts of the Americas before European contact. If we're not going to accept the old idea that it was a racial thing, then this does require an explanation, which is exactly what Jared Diamond wrote his book to do.
As for Ice Age glaciation patterns, it would be pretty weird to explain events in about 480AD with reference to events that happened nearly 10,000 years earlier. Although, the fall of the Western empire does coincides roughly with the end of the Roman warm period, and this has indeed been cited as a contributing factor to Western Europe's problems in the immediate aftermath of Rome's fall, due to the drop in agricultural output occasionned by less ideal weather in areas north of the Alps.
However the reason this comparison is not normally made is because this would raise the notion that, like Western Europe, Africa was benefitting from its imperial overseers and that the removal of the imperial power subsequently caused the degredation of the society. That is not a politically popular perspective to hold about Africa, but it is the pervailing one held about Western Europe.
@@hiddenhistI suspect that the reason why these "general explained" channels fail so hard when talking about africa is because they rely on popular "knowlage" and common sense rather then actual research.
They don't educate, they make money by justifing existing beliefs with techno-babel.
They don't have to be true, they just have to make sense to the undereducated
The other item of note is the relative nature of rich vs. poor. Many historians considered the Mali Empire rich in its day, supplying half the gold of old Europe, while the modern Republic of Mali is poor. But the modern Republic of Mali is far richer and more productive than its 14th century counterpart. Same could be said comparing modern vs ancient Greece in their respective times. The difference is in comparing these nations of their time to the rest of the world.
I think the real issue we need to think about is the fact that the wealth these countries have never went away, it just isn't owned by itself anymore. Mali is still rich in everything, even currency. But that currency isn't in mali. It's somewhere in a french bank.
There is a slight difference. The King of Mali was very rich because he owned or at least had a very big stake in the gold mines and salt production and he also owned a lot of slaves. The say that the citizens of the Kingdom of Mali were the richest people in the world on a per capita basis or to say that Mali had the biggest economy in the world at that time would not be true
Tragic this video will not reach nearly as many people as the EE one
Maybe Soma can collab with Unlearning Economics to get a bigger audience. Unlearning Economics often criticizes EE
@@youtubeuserremainsanonymou9022 would be nice to see them do an economic history video. Especially bc UE has ranted before about the lack of historical specificity and has more generally shown some interest in history
I mean that is a problem with many EE videos, or edutainment more generally.
Because EE is entertainment and most audiences prefer that to facts.
I clicked this video because I almost never find videos refuting the egregiously shallow, often harmful and often inaccurate or misleading content on Economics Explained. There was a time I didnt mind the channel and even found it insightful sometimes. But the quality of the content there is too shallow to be useful. Its more like "Pop Economics" -- it doesn't even try to do the topics it selects justice.
Your explanations are what I expect from a channel claiming to do "economics explained" content. This is great stuff you've put together here and I love the way you explain it. I hope you and channels like yours fill this void. Folks like me are interested in the topic of economics as consumers and to get our info from EE would be tragic.
Thank you, but economics isn't the focus of my channel, history is more my area. If you want a solid economics channel, I would recommend Unlearning Economics!
Money and Macro is constantly debunking Economics Explained
@@Seth9809 I found that channel just the other day and have been watching a bunch of their videos lol
@@SomasAcademy Sorry for the late reply, hard to track comments on youtube. But to your point: economics and history aren't as separate as traditional educational would have us believe. Case in point: this video :) Look forward to more of your work!
It feels good to know there are critical thinkers out there (such as yourself) who refuse to allow such deplorably incorrect “historical info” on Africa to fester into widely-accepted misinformation, that goes unquestioned by many & is mindlessly consumed, then readily regurgitated like it’s the truth. Thank you, from a Senegambian man… +1 subscriber my friend🤞🏿
The idea that Africans didn’t invent wheels because they were afraid that an evil king would steal them is honestly probably the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard. But it’s actually terrifying to think of how many people watch a video like the EE one and believe every word he said just because he cited one study
The comment section of the EE channel always gets a strong far-right tinge whenever that dude talks about any African country. Stopped watching his videos because it was so bad
Idk what is it with the internet and Africa. For some reason a lot of people online have a primal hatred towards anything related to Africa and it's quite worriying.
Now never go to a channel called history scope video on Africa economy. I remember comments straight up saying how some races are inferior and how Africa is always going to be poor because of it. It's full on racism
I left his discord server real quick, at the time it was overrun with right wing idiots up to straight up nazis.
Its maybe the Side effect of the shitshow in America because a Lot of the Arguments are coined in a very American way ON both Sites Like for example the whole nonsense with the black Community only maybe works with America and the Obsession with White and black and the whole generic discussions
@@altechelghanforever9906because they are racist. Tale as old as time nothing to be confused about 💀
The idea that Subsaharan Africa wasn’t in contact with Eurasia is ridiculous, we have accounts of interactions going back to classical times. Augustus even met with a delegation of Ethiopians on the island of Samos in 21 BCE.
They didn't say there was no contact, they said isolated....
Before the internal combustion engine anyone who didn't live within a few miles was a mysterious forigner.... :D
Sub-Saharan Africa wasn't constantly swamped with Europe's issues the way Northern Africa was, that's all, a small point made in the EE video :)
@@EveryoneWhoUsesThisTVit's one of many "technically true" argument you and ee make. Everything is trchnically true if you take away enough context. West africa and east Africa were not isolated. We just know less about the region because either artifacts were lost or the rest was destroyed in europes endless superiority complex and their inferiority jumping high when they found out what africans coukd achieve. One of the reasons great zimbabwe, benin and the ashante suffered from lack of cultural artifacts is that europeans stole or destroyed what ever they could get their hands on.
@@EveryoneWhoUsesThisTVbut they still weren’t isolated. what’s your point?
@@chroma._.5986 My point was that they were clearly relatively isolated compared to their northern neighbours... :)
It's great to have voices like yours resisting ignorant attempts to erase history. I wonder if you could do a video on looted ancient artifacts sometime in the future? If Africa has no history why have they kept in museums what they didn't melt down or destroy entirely?
Thank you for the topic suggestion, I'll consider covering that at some point!
@@SomasAcademyDon't mention it!
As a guy married to a Zimbabwean-Mozambican, I find the history of Africa to be fascinating. One thing I learned was that Chinese coins have even been found at Great Zimbabwe. Indian Ocean trade! 😮😂😊
Great job. I literally responded to that video, and there were so many ridiculous claims, I commented that a video was needed to debunk them. So THANK YOU.
Lol, I'm glad I'm not the only one who saw how seriously wrong the video was
@@SomasAcademy lol you definitely are not the only one. Thanks again, and keep up the great work.
the uncomfortable truth is that a big part of these 'mistakes' come from colonial racist propaganda.
What mistakes?
@@TheSm1thers Watch the video.
@@jasonhaven7170 I did and he didn't really make a mistake. The whole thing is based on not understanding what EE is saying or expanding upon it. For instance, to say the Sahara contributes to isolating Africa is not to say there's never been any trade whatsoever between Africa and other continents.
Also even if he did make a mistake he's making "Geography determines destiny" points, not racial ones.
@@TheSm1thers He literally made constant mistakes. Watch the video properly.
@@jasonhaven7170 For the other one he just says "Ancient Africans would've found it very hard to develop agriculture given these factors" in reference to poor geographic conditions that meant much of Africa lagged behind other parts of the world in terms of productive agriculture. He doesn't say "Africans never developed any agriculture at all".
I completely agree with alot of your claims. It makes me sick how the western world still seems to paint africa as a monolith of primitivism so we can ignore the continents humanity when we exploit them further. Excellent sources, i’ve learned a lot especially from your agriculture and cultivation section but I think another key part of the problems facing agriculture cultivation in a lot of subsaharan agriculture is that the classical farming methods used for thousands of generations in the area functionally disappeared with the advent of colonialism, demonizing these methods in favor of monocultures, displacement of natives form their land and isolating them from information on such methods so they would no longer hold any power in the means of production, as well as opportunists deforesting previously lush areas(that worked along side agricultural customs for water preservation and work against erosion) for immediate profit. Again great video, libertarian belief in the west always seems to make poverty a moral failure so it’s only a matter of time before racism and infantilization comes into play with the most exploited continent in the world.
I think these ideas are so ingrained in the public perception that EE just assumed they were true from the beginning. I myself have made the mistake of using these arguments to explain Africa
Absolutely, these are unfortunately very widespread misconceptions - although I never thought that Africa lacked agriculture and never heard the wheel argument until much later, I also repeated the argument about the Sahara cutting off Sub-Saharan Africa several times back before I got into African history! It's very easy to pick up myths when so little about African history is widely discussed. That's why I thought it was important to make this video, and why I tried not to be insulting to EE for making these mistakes (even though as an educational channel I think their standards should be much higher) - I don't want anyone to feel bad for not knowing better when these ideas are so common, I just want to help make them less common!
Your channel is criminally under-subscribed.
Thank you!
I just subscribed. Doing my part to pump those numbers up.
Well in Kenya, the community I come from, the Agikuyu, were basically farmers, domesticated cattle, sheeps and goats, had no king, was fairly democratic, was head by a chief who was assisted by a council of elders, who regularly changed as per the age set, had the iron age, basically everything that researchers don't mention
white understanding of africa is very different from how africans understand Africa period
I would say "Western" or even just "non-African" understanding, because I've found these misconceptions common among many Asians and even African Americans. The public discussion of Africa outside of the continent is unfortunately incredibly limited, and colonial-era racism unfortunately fills in a lot of the gaps even for people of African descent.
@@SomasAcademy Yeah your western view of Africa really pisses me off have you heard of how Afrikaners are creating white successionist towns
@@azathothog Yeah I have heard of that, pretty disgraceful.
@@SomasAcademy i find disgracefull to be an understatement its disgusting and vile and lets not forgot how arabs treat my people the amazigh
I remember studying African history in college, and I was shocked by how many things Americans do not learn about African history (eurocentric bias). I learned only a tiny bit about it before college, mainly with Egypt, Aksum, the Atlantic slave trade, and imperialism by Europeans. In college, I learned so much more, but I just scratched the surface. I wish history education in the U.S. about groups outside of the Americas and Europe were better covered.
Why would a basic history class in the U.S. focus so much on people groups outside of the U.S. I wouldn't except a history class in Nigeria to focus on the Japanese or Brazilian peoples.
@@marshallcook2740 because it's History you guys are just ignorant that's all.
A basic history course in the US will teach you about Ancient Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, Medieval and Early Modern Europe, European colonialism, a little bit about Ancient China and India, a bit about Japan, and a number of other non-American history subjects. The vast majority of history taught in US classes is not US-specific history. Considering also that Africans were one of the core founding demographics of the British colonies, West and West Central African history has a much greater place in the narrative of US history than the founding of Buddhism or the Mandate of Heaven, which you will learn about in a basic history course.
@@marshallcook2740 But we learned about the holocaust over and over and over and over again
As a Nigerian, the existence of an ancient African civilization called Yam is hilarious 😂
lmao
Why are some many Eurocentric scholars so infatuated with the ideology that any civilization that did not have the wheel or make use of wheel is back-wards, in.ferior, and primi.tive to European civilization.
It's partly because of insecurity. Many Eurocentrics are the descendants of ancient Northern Europeans. The Greco-Roman called their ancestors primitive and intelligently inferior. Eurocentrics feel insecure about the fact that Western civilization was founded by people who looked down on them. So they project their insecurities onto other people.
Sorry did he just claim africa didn't develop agriculture, the continent has the highest rural population and highest subsistence farming of any continent. One of the reason it is considered poor is because farming for oneself does does not show up in GDP, as it isn't exchanging any money.
Ghanaian- American here. (I'm ashanti and great bringing up my tribe). Great vid overall. From my understanding, the wheel thing came from the fact that the Kongo Kingdom didnt use the wheel when the Portuguese arrived in the 15th century. You can find that in Acemougu's book "Why nations fail." But the issue with economics explained is when he extrapolated that because the Kongo Kingdom didnt have wheels in the 1400s, that meant all of Africa didnt have wheels, which is a silly extrapolation.
Making mistakes is one thing, but misrepresenting your one source is what I think is revealing. As someone making videos, making mistakes is part of the process, but taking sources and engaging with them is so incredibly important. Also, great video as always! 💚
Econ majors be like ugh my graph explaining why poor people deserve to die is due Friday 😫
Same with South India and Southeast Asia. Indonesia has experienced a number of powerhouse thallassocratic empires which were DOMINANT and it was the very terrain and difficulty of land transport than led them to defend against the Mongols and remain independent. Those empires were so wealthy due to MARITIME TRADE. Same with the Cholas and so on.17:12
Does thallassocratic mean ruling the seas? Too lazy to google
@@schoo9256yeah its maritime empire
@@fadhil2831 thanks
Here from Veritas et Caritas, awesome video. I'm sad to admit I don't know as much about African history as I should, beyond how it connects to Middle Eastern and American history, but this has given me a lot of interesting threads to follow. Thank you.
Thank you for watching, I'm glad you enjoyed and I hope the resources I've suggested can help you learn more!
Don't forget, most Black people are aware the word "History" originates from the term "His story." That's means his story, in reference to a bunch of White men lies!
❤😍❤😍❤ Fantastic video, pleeeease do more videos like this where you cover broader topics with a wide scope, especially on African history. You're obviously very knowledgable about this subject, and I think there is a good reason why your most popular videos are about African empires. UA-cam really needs more informative content on African history like this, you're right there are way too many misconceptions floating around on this subject. Plus I think the algorithm will reward you :)
Thank you so much!
I really appreciate you putting in the effort to pronounce Acemoğlu’s last name in Turkish ^^. It also really sucks that he doesn’t talk much about the neocolonialism and outsider western destabilization and meddling that we still have to deal with to this day and how colonialism really did a number on the infrastructure that has been built into these countries were primarily based on resource extraction and that doesn’t help much with diversifying their economies and the people developing more self determination for them selves 🤦🏻♂️
Yeah, I always try to pronounce things as accurately as I can, especially names! And I agree, the article and interview really don't touch on post-colonial factors, which I think are comparably important to colonial factors and more important than pre-colonial factors in explaining the economic situations of most African countries!
Great video, Soma. Really well made. And thanks for the shout-out. ✨️
Thank you, and you're welcome ^_^
Easily won a subscriber, this is the best researched video I've seen on Africa, thank you!
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed!
The channel called Premodernist has a really good video on the wheel nonsense and a more recent one about wheelbarrows
Yes, I actually link those videos in the description!
@@SomasAcademyi love premodernist, we need more historians like him. Glad to subscribe to you now too!
@@XingAoShen Thank you!
That was simply outstanding. Thank you so much for the astonishing amount of research material you put into making this. Yet, I ask you: is it necessary to go through it all so quickly? I know we can all just press the rewind button, but there's no need to rush. I loved the way you deal with the scholarship. I'm curious as to whether you intentionally kept Henry Louis Gate's documentary Africa's Great Civilizations out of your references, and if so, why? Before your video, it was the material that had literally turned my globe upside down.
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed! I am a naturally fast talker, I sometimes try to slow things down for my video but to me it feels agonizingly slow and artificial lol, apologies if it makes me hard to keep up with sometimes. That documentary wasn't in my references simply because I've never seen it lol, I'll check it out when I get the chance now that you've brought it to my attention.
Ok I'm a complete history noob who didn't even have a full high school history education because my school was weird. But I noticed a flaw immediately when he said sub saharan Africa was isolated. If Africa was isolated, HOW were Nigerians and other West Africans Muslim by the time Europeans "discovered" them?
As someone with just a bachelor's degree in economics, economics explained is probably one of the worst economics channels on UA-cam. Not surprised to see they make mistakes in other fields.
i bet this chick knows way more about Africa than Economics Explained ever could
I bet she knows there Democratic Republic of the Congo is at that!!
@@Cooom what
@@MikhailKalashnikov-re4qu I think by "there" he/she meant "where"
Considering she has two BAs and a Master's, and we're not even sure if EE finished his undergrad, yeah I would say so
Even without taking into account that she specialised in history and African history, while his subject was Economics lol
@@LoudWaffle i sure your right, idk how you know this she could of lied but you would belive anything she says GFC
This is good work, and I’m glad you made this video!
Thank you so much, I'm glad you appreciated it!
Why is Africa poor?
Colonialism.
Here is an experiment for anyone who thinks a wheelbarrow is more technologically advanced over putting something on your head over the same ground.
Go to any two mile stretch of road and resolve to move fiour concrete cinder blocks from point A to point B.
But dont use the road.
Instead, go 100 yards too one side, in the brush and try that oh-so-wonderful wheelbarrow for a two mile trip to a similar poit 100 yards to one side of the roadway, never approaching closer than 100 yards to the road.
You'll end up just making two trips with two blocks each,... And be thankful you no longer had that damned wheelbarrow to fuck with.
Also, don't use a modern wheelbarrow made out lightweight aluminum with a pneumatic rubber tire. Use a wheelbarrow made of heavy wood, with an inflexible wooden wheel.
Thank you for doing the work to correct the record. As "edutainment" and video essays have become more popular, we get more issues with dilettantes speaking outside their area of expertise, or just straight up spreading misinformation. This isn't the first time that particular UA-cam channel has done this. And as you point out, misconceptions about African history abound. Again, thank you. I hope this video gets half as many views as EE's incorrect one.
I would hope EE is smart enough to see this and produce a new video correcting themselves on everything, actually reading the paper they cited. I mean, it's a free video idea and 75% of the work has been done already.
Good video. I'm glad this is being slowly tackled in the online space
I don't get why people think the wheel is the mother invention of all human civilisation. Wheels are overrated as a key invention that creates "successful civilisation."
The mass adoption of wheels are more of a sign of a stable era. Where roads are smooth enough that woodem wheels don't break easily.
The incas and Aztecs were quite successful without the wheel. Clearly the wheel is not the key invention.
As an archeology major and someone who studied History and Anthropology extensively the EE video actually physically hurt
I tend to have a lot of quibbles with Economics Explained. It is a very good channel, but they also tend to espouse pretty traditional economic analysis with a lot of overlooking power dynamics that have created or reinforced current trends, much less basic history 😅. I haven't seen the video you were inspired by, but I appreciate this thorough review of pre-colonial African trade and economics. One thing we know is that all the places colonized were colonized BECAUSE they were wealthy in both raw materials but also in finished goods. People wanted the stuff from these places, meaning trade was plentiful in these places well before colonization.
Yeah, I assume it would be very hard to put out weekly videos on a subject as broad and complicated as economics without oversimplifying a lot and making lots of errors along the way. I'm sure that with the resources a channel that size has at its disposal they could improve the research standards somewhat (maybe hire a few people to fact-check), but I can't blame them for blunders; there's inevitably gonna be a tradeoff between making high quality videos and posting on a regular schedule.
This is a great review and response to the video!! :3
Particularly, the claim about agriculture never developing in Africa is SO absurd that I'm positive Economics Explained did zero fact-checking and just relied entirely on their own racist biases.
They didn't say farming didn't develop in Africa.
They said large scale agriculture never produced a large city or empire in sub-Saharan Africa which is broadly true. :)
@@EveryoneWhoUsesThisTV ...no? Just watched the EE video, and the first time they bring up agriculture is the clip used in this one. The second time, EE claims that agriculture only existed in select areas of Africa (very false) and that people had to "keep moving" (false as well; many pre-colonial sub-Saharan societies throughout West, South, Central, and East Africa lived sedentary lifestyles).
Also, pre-colonial sub-Saharan Africa had a number of empires and cities. This is literally mentioned in this video. There was Songhai, Ghana/Wagadou, the Sokoto Caliphate, Mali, Kanem-Bornu, Jolof, etc. for empires, and Kumbi Saleh, Timbuktu, Kong, Kilwa, Djenné-Djenno, Sokoto, Ibadan, and Ngazargamu (just to name a few) for cities.
@@queegle99 I'm familiar with African empires, but they rarely sprang from an agricultural surplus like they tended to in Europe and Asia.
Farming happens everywhere, agriculture is an organized centralized affair.
@@EveryoneWhoUsesThisTV That's not really what you said in your first comment. I can't tell if you're defending the EE video or making your own points, because this video (and me) already invalidated THEIR points.
Plenty of African polities (such as the Oyo, Mali, and Songhai empires, along with the Swahili city-states) produced agricultural surpluses that were frequently then traded.
Also, definition of agriculture: "Agriculture is the science, art, or occupation of cultivating land, raising crops, and breeding livestock."
Many societies throughout Africa practiced intensive agriculture; they just often had different methods when compared to farmers from Eurasia.
@@queegle99 EE video was about economics, it got plenty wrong in regard to history and agriculture, but I doubt they care much about anything but their main points about economics.
I do endorse its main point that Sub-Saharan Africa couldn't sustain the kinds of empires and economies that Europe had, because of geography.
To sustain the population of Rome, they imported vast amounts of food from all over the Mediterranean, that would be logistically impossible in Sub-Saharan Africa because of the geography.
It’s very refreshing to have someone actually give an unbiased factual and objective view on Africa. Far far too many people are just ok with disrespecting the entire continent and spreading lies thinking they’re telling some shocking truth I’m so sick of it lol
This Economics explained video was just face-palm. Though, some of the points could be argued to be more about degrees rather than 1 or 0, it was still a video that oversimplified African greater development too much. Africa has been home to some great civilizations and kingdoms. And though I could nit-pick and argue some points of issues here and there I think you did a very good overview of the issues with this video.
You do know I really wonder why the Ge'ez Axumite word for wagon ,Saragallaa, existed and was used, if wheels were unknown to sub-saharan Africa (hmm really makes you wonder does it not?)😏
Thank you! I only addressed the arguments Economics Explained made that were predicated on clear historical misconceptions, so there's a lot in their video that I think is way more debatable, as you said, although I do feel they oversimplified throughout (partly as a consequence of drawing from Acemoglu and Robinson, who themselves overgeneralized from only a few examples, in my opinion, and partly as a consequence of simplifying Acemoglu and Robinson's arguments even more). There's a lot more that could be said about their full video, but my goal here was to focus on the arguments that were indisputably incorrect, while leaving more debatable points aside. That's why I also didn't tackle the question of "why is Africa still poor?" itself, because although I think I could provide a pretty strong answer to that question, it would be a matter of interpretation and argument rather than an explanation of historical fact.
@@SomasAcademy 👍
Ironically, if it were not for me being portuguese and our education focusing in our role in colonialism, i likely would not know that africa had some of the richest and most important kingdoms in economic world history.
Portugals colonialism was more based on controling forts and harbors in specific spots and cooperating with local kingdoms (before the victorian era), so we do learn alout about how its completely bullshit that africa had no civilizations or whatnot.
They not only did, but they were equally advanced and rich as others.
Europe also had shitty housing for 99% of people, only the rich in europe lived in great palaces and castles, the image we have of africa is the image we should have of 99% of peasants everywhere: people living in a farm whilst their rulers live in mansions.
Great video. But most people are comforted with believing that Africa is poor because of Africans. Not because of logical reasons.
Which is ironic because those people often claim to be logical themselves 😂
@@zidinuovoio8308 Yup. Those “facts over feelings” people.
I'm really loving the culture of youtube where we point out when supposedly educational content is incorrect. It really is forcing people to check their sources more becore publishing. Thank you for doing your part
It should be said that donkeys did not see much use until 1000 AD in West Africa, but this was not due to a lack of access, but a lack of necessity until the trans-Saharan trade was in full swing. Interestingly, donkeys also never made it to southern Africa, like horses.
(edit: I changed this first part from a not correct critique but got a reply first - oops! sorry for anyone confused reading reply)
I am not educated with regards to animal herding in East Africa or tsetse flies. Do you know why oxen were brought to southern Africa but not horses or donkeys? I'm not sure if it is a physiological thing or they weren't as essential. Thank you!
Also thank you for speaking on boats! That just makes sense.
I brought up Donkeys as an example of an animal that was domesticated within Sub-Saharan Africa to illustrate the fact that domestic livestock didn't just flow into Africa from elsewhere, you are correct that they weren't used as widely within Sub-Saharan Africa as they were in Eurasia (though I'm not sure that their range "never reached most of the Sahel" as you said, I don't know their exact range but have read of them being used in West Africa as pack animals between the Sahel and the Sudan).
Very good question! Eurasian cattle, sheep, and goats are all susceptable to trypanosomiasis, the disease spread by the tsetse, but certain breeds developed in Africa have mutations making them resistant to the parasite, and were thus able to cross the tsetse belt. This resistence is connected to smaller body size, so these breeds tend to be smaller than their Eurasian counterparts, and are often described as "dwarf" or "pygmy" breeds. There are also West African horse breeds with higher trypanosomiasis resistence than the Arabian breeds brought to the region from the north (which were popular as prestige mounts throughout the medieval and early modern period, but died at a much higher rate than local horses), but their resistance is only moderately higher, still too low to brave the depths of the tsetse belt.
@@SomasAcademy Yeah sorry about the first assumption! I was editing it as you replied, my bad.
Thank you the information! I imagine the smaller sizes would be appreciated for dealing with heat too, but of course that goes for animals even above the tsetse belt, so clearly isn't the primary reason for the adaptation. Still very impressed by the horse breeding though - at least the ones I was around when I was little were very sensitive to everything, that must have taken some patient individuals to make it work.
Plenty of donkeys/horses over here bro😂
This video is a good source of knowledge on many points that are misunderstood about history of the African continent. It does not, however, refute much of what EE portrays or even gets to ANY of the main issues being presented - namely, WHY Africa is still poor? EE is incorrect on a number of occasions and lax with resources to his claims, but instead of addressing the question you point a number of exceptions. Sure, trade existed throughout Sahara and Sahel region. Does this combat the idea that Sahara was (and is) a natural barrier for civilazations/empires, cultures and people to cross? Sure, agriculture did develop in the region, crops were domesticated. How does this relate to the point EE brings up - lack of abundant fertile soil? You can domesticate any crop in a small enough plot but in order to develop and sustain a large empire you need an overabudance of resources (not just from farming of course but nonetheless) which leads to expansions and development of culture. Even the wheel thing is taken here in the less charitable view. Yes, it is a popular misconseption stemming from colonial psyche, that Sub-Saharan Africa was "that" backwards that they "didn't invent the wheel". And while EE could've presented the argument better, the problem lies in the fact that wheel wasn't, in fact, adopted - even if it wasn't the best way for goods to be transported. In other words, inability to adopt the wheel due to geographical realities is still a hindrance that stifled the development. I've realized mid-video if the latter half didn't address the topic that would make this a total miss. Unfortunately, it did not.
I concur with your sentiments
This video destroys the Jared Diamond school of thought.
It really doesn't. The arguments are very different. E.g., Jared Diamon would never argue that Africa had no independent agriculture, that's just a stupid argument (and the Americas, too, developed it independently), but rather that the need to spread north-south rather than east-west as in the Eurasian belt, limited speed with which agricultural techniques and innovations could spread (due to the need to adapt to new climatic zones along the way), which slowed down development. The video also mentions the TseTse belt, which would be one of the main factors in the materialist school of thought of Jared Diamond.
@@olenickel6013 Yes it does. We see agriculture had spread well in Africa. Jared Diamond is bullshit when you realise how easily agriculture spread from the Indus Valley to Southern India.
@@olenickel6013 The fact that crops spread north to south in Africa over the course of approximately 3k years (~2500 BCE origin point in the Niger basin (unless it originated earlier) to ~500 CE late-end estimate for its arrival in modern-day South Africa) while it took approximately 4k years to spread a similar distance east to west in Eurasia (~9700 BCE point of origin in the Fertile crescent, mid-6th millennium BCE arrival date in modern-day Spain) kinda does refute that argument of Diamond's lol. Diamond's assumption that Africa was "vertically oriented" was also an error itself; Africa is almost exactly as "tall" north-south as it is "wide" east-west. And while it's not as wide as all of Eurasia, it's still quite wide, wider than Europe. Diamond's ideas are not entirely without merit, but he overemphasized the role of geography in shaping societal development (it's only one of several similarly influencial factors, not the central factor), and made a lot of historical assumptions about areas he didn't know much about like Africa and the Americas (he makes clear, unambiguous historical errors in his recounting of the Spanish conquests of the Aztec and Inca Empires, for example, seemingly unaware that the Spanish forces had a number of Native Allies roughly commensurate with the forces of their opponents and unaware of how few Spaniards were equipped with guns or metal armor when he argues that these technologies were major factors in allowing the Spanish to take on supposedly much larger native forces). A lot of his arguments essentially consist of taking common historical misconceptions and providing reasonable geographic explanations for why they would be the case, without verifying that they actually were the case beforehand; this clearly reflects poorly on the explanatory value of a lot of his arguments, since if they can even work to explain things that weren't true, that implies a certain unfalsifiability to them that makes them scientifically invalid. I may make an additional video talking about his book at some point, since it's a lot to go over in a UA-cam comment.
@@SomasAcademy The Spanish conquistadors had tiny forces relative to their conquests. Saying they had native allies just raises the question of why those people allied with the Spanish and hadn't already taken over themselves. Admittedly, one can argue against the technological advantage being decisive based on the success of a conquistador in the Old World fighting opponents with gunpowder: Afonso de Albuquerque. Daniel Kokotajlo wrote about the reasons for their success over at Less Wrong.
@@clownpendotfart Again, this is a lot to go over in a UA-cam comment, I don't want to spend time litigating the history of the Spanish conquests of the Aztec and Inca empires or the concept of historical contingency. If and when I make a video discussing Diamond's book, I will try to keep your point in mind so that I can address it there, provided it isn't too much of an aside.
One thing that wasn't mentioned in your video is natural harbors. Africa has approximately 30,500 km of coastline. That might sound like a lot, but Norway, with only its west & southern coasts on the ocean, has between 25,000 & 83,000 km of coastlines, all depending on how they are measured. I would say that this was one of the largest impediments to long distance trade. Add to that the fact that many of the rivers that flow from the interior portions of the continent are difficult to navigate, requiring difficult portages from headlands to the various seas & oceans. Good video & thanks for the book recommendations.
A relative lack of coastline isn't necessarily an impediment to long distance trade - lots of natural harbors may encourage a society to focus more on maritime activity, but as mentioned in the video, parts of Africa still had strong maritime cultures, namely the East African coast. In West Africa, there are also quite a few lagoons along the coast where boat travel was common. However, current systems and rough waters discouraged Western Africans from developing a lot of maritime technology; those enclosed lagoons I mentioned were safe, but if you went too far out into the open ocean chances of capsizing were a lot higher, so Western Africans mostly hugged the coast. North of Senegambia, the prevailing currents also push south, making it difficult to sail northward; this largely prevented direct contact with Europe prior to the 15th century, when the Portuguese discovered that sailing directly west from the African coast would bring them to a circular current system allowing their ships to return to Europe. This is why when we're talking about trade between Sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the Old World prior to the Early Modern Period, the focus is all on overland trade across the Sahara and maritime trade along the eastern coast; the western coast just couldn't get involved until the discovery of that current system.
As for navigable rivers, that issue is somewhat overstated; toward the mouths of several major rivers in Africa, the flow becomes rapid and therefore unnavigable, but that leaves quite a bit of navigable river further inland, and there was most likely a fair amount of travel by boat within the African interior. I think the origin of this idea that African rivers are particularly unnavigable may come from early European sources, since when they arrived by sea to the western coast Europeans would have first been greeted by the rapids around the mouths of these rivers, preventing them from navigating further inland and seeing what the rivers were like elsewhere. We know for sure that trade goods made their way from the Eastern coast of Africa to the Western one, so the interior was definitely more navigable than some people assume.
Thank you for watching and commenting!
@@SomasAcademy Wow.Thanks for that reply. I admit that my knowledge of Sub-Saharan (or even Saharan) culture & history is very limited, but I am working on it. I tend to tackle things chronologically & for the last decade or so have been more focused on ancient history (both east & west) & the early development of civilizations. But, in my plodding way, I will get there. Just give me another decade or so & I might even break the BCE/CE curtain (though, I have no interest in Rome). Thanks, & I have subscribed. Keep up the great work.
@@SomasAcademyare you African? Because your accent isn't African
Wow this was very interesting and informative. I love the level of detail you provided. I never knew Rhapta meant sewn.
It’s sad misconceptions remain so strong even amongst researchers and big channels on this platform.
It seems like the MIT researchers made a decent argument. Economics Explained did not. Academia is continuing to decolonize. UA-cam? Not sure about their decolonization efforts or lack thereof.
There's something about a Australian spreading lies about Africa (intentionally or not) to a mainly english-speaking audience that leaves a really bitter taste in my mouth.
It's so nice to see a trans person debunking commonly held views about Africa. Great job
I've seen some of EE's videos. Some of their explanations seem kinda fascist to me. They're overly simplistic, convenient, disengaged of the territories's contexts, and filled with colonial and "westerncentric" biases 🙄🙄🙄🙄
I wouldn't go so far as to call them "kinda fascist" - I think that would require a few additional layers that aren't present in EE videos - but I agree that they have issues with oversimplification, convenient narratives, and biases. I think it's mostly a consequence of them putting out weekly videos for a general audience on topics that really need a lot more time to adequately discuss (paired with biases like, as you call it, "westerncentrism," that are simply common in a lot of fields, including Economics); it's a lot easier and more profitable to take one or two sources, skim them, and abbreviate their points into a 15-20 minute script, and move on than it is to provide adequate academic coverage to really any topic they cover.
I also don't think fascist is the right description. If their ideas have roots in 'bad ideology,' it's more leaning towards an Austrian school view of the world and economics or maybe just neoclassical view, mixed with that colonial and western centric bias you mentioned.
What's more annoying to me is that his stuff isn't particularly well-researched, and he doesn't provide citations for his claims.
I remember getting in a big argument with my brother about EE because he said "well Denmark has some of the highest wealth inequality in the world," and cited EE. I listened to the claim, chased up all possible sources, and in the end the only source I could find with their numbers was one I couldn't date to before the video came out, with several counterexamples from reputable sources. It may have even just been a simple transposition of digits error. But it's a foundational point to his claim, and it's entirely wrong. The rate of wealth inequality goes from being literally the worst in the world to being _below_ average in terms of wealth inequality. The fact that he made such a mistake is not itself damning- although that afaik the video is still up is pretty bad- but the fact that his other research ~~didn't exist~~ turned up nothing to support his claim and yet he still thought, "this is probably correct" is pretty damning. Did nothing he looked at not contradict this? Did he not read Danish sources on their own economic conditions?
It feels very much like vibes-based economics.
@@SomasAcademy Hi Somas, Thanks for the answer. I agree with you about the severity of calling someone a "fascist." Maybe the inconvenience was that, as English isn't my first language, I didn't find a word for "facho." In Spanish, something or someone is "facho" when it resembles characteristics of fascism but without being openly or clearly fascist; it's like saying "there's something fishy with your ideas." So, if you know a suitable word in English, I'm open to learning. Having said that, I also agree that the misinformation comes primarily from the necessity of making videos for consumption. However, I still suspect this systematic lack of rigor isn't naive. From my humble pov, this narrative obeys the agenda of people behind this channel and seeks to perpetuate a narrative of the so-called "global south." Either way, having communicators objecting to the hegemonic narrative is always delightful. Thanks!
@@andresethorimn8608 Ah, that makes sense, and no worries. We don't have an exact equivalent in English; sometimes people do use "Fascist" in a very broad way, but this is often considered a hyperbolic misuse of the term rather than an accepted adjective.
@andresethorimn8608 the equivalent English word, your looking for is Fascy/Fashy, as in uncomfortably close to fascism, or bearing ideas that seem to come from bad ideology without being outright fascist
I was taken aback (and really appreciate)how thorough your counter arguments were. So many gaps in his videos were covered. It does make me wonder: how accurate have any of his other videos really been? I’m quite alarmed as a past viewer of his, to be honest.
Thank you, I'm glad you appreciated! I have seen a few response videos since making this that suggest a lot of EE's work is pretty dubious including in their actual area of expertise; I'd recommend the channel Money and Macro for a few examples.
FINALLY!!!! Someone who actually does their research
I just don’t have the patience to fight it out with people anymore in the comments to correct mistakes
Its a well known fact that Economics Explained is not the best place to learn anything serious about economics, the channel regularly get panned on discussions on blogs and subreddits about economics. Just google around and you will find plenty of people dissecting his videos just like you just did and pointing out how wrong they are . Its not just about being factually incorrect , he also has some pretty strong bias which he doesn't even try to correct or account for when making a video on a topic which is unlike any professional economist would do. Needless to say he isn't a economist, just studying economics as undergrad in college doesn't actually make u an economist just like studying physics as undergrad didn't make me a physicist
This video is excellent! The level of ignorance about African history in the US is astounding (idk about Europe but I assume its just as bad). So many 'informed' explainers and journalistic pieces just regurgitate bogus assumptions like those you debunk from EE. Many of which are clearly the intellectual descendents of race science and 19th century racist anthropology. Your video essay is much appreciated!
Salute for educating those willing.
Why Africa is poor is indeed complex, way before contact with colonisers, we were already trading, we mined, grew crops and kept animals, that is why Dias and Da Gama managed to get refreshments from Africans on their voyages.
Thanks again.
Oh your like tapped in to the history culture on UA-cam, I’m definitely givin ur channel a shot. I fw you dog🙏👽
As someone with an african immigrant father thanks alot for this video! It always feels racist to me when people try to „explain“ why africa is poor, as if any livestyle that isn’t industrialized cities is poor and worth of pity! And the real reason africa is poor to day is so very clearly exploitation and the slave trade history. Anyone who believes otherswise… i can’t even call that ignorant anymore and i also don’t want to call it stupid because it lifts the blame so i am calling it actually evil. Maybe my views are extreme but the injustice is so great i don’t have any other words
Yeah i stopped following that channel, he is full of it
Nice to hear more from more historians from one's own Country or of Africa, but learned of this in backwoods school here in the States but that was in the 80s. Thanks for the recommendations of books need some new reads anyways. May you and yours stay well, and good blessings.
For the accuracy you have displayed in this video on the history of Africa, you get a Gold Star from me
Thank you for making this video! I wanted to comment on the EE vid, but I felt like I’d be shouting into the void. You shouted louder and better than I.
The major economic point still missing - or not especially highlighted - was the immense portable wealth in the slave trade (less so of ivory, precious metals, gems, foodstuffs and clothing materials et al). Imports of African slaves to Western Europe dropped dramatically, but not completely, with the collapse of the slave-dependent industrial farming of the Roman empire .. it continued unabated to the East, and thus to the Arab conquerors in the richer parts of the decayed Helleno-Roman economy - and farther still to India and Indo-China, etc. Even with the Portuguese and Spanish adventurers going around the Arabic/ Moorish monopoly of that trade (slaves being part of goods on sale) relatively few sub-Saharan Africans came to the Post-Roman West other than as exotics .. thus little in the way of records survive of that reduced economic contact (and the exploitation of its seemingly unlimited resources).
Only in fairly recent times - the late 19th and early 20th centuries - was direct exploitation by Europeans in the various economies across the African continent seen as a feasible option, and this 'interest' lasted little more than 80 years (at most 1870-1960). A return to indirect exploitation, via the local rulers, returned, and within less than 50 years once more became the accepted norm (1960-2000).
Africa, as a whole, should and could be immensely wealthy - as it is indeed, in terms of resources, but accessible only for a tiny minority whether in the relatively advanced Islamic North, the still comparatively developed Christian South, and the vast swathe of largely ignored hinterland - now attracting chiefly resource hunters rather than invested traders (interested in saleable goods, perhaps including cheap 'servants').
:0/ ....
The Economics Explained video actually does talk about the slave trade a bit; I didn't cover this part of their video because, although still somewhat oversimplified and debatable, it was not based on fundamental misconceptions about history like the claims I did cover. The impacts of various slave trades on Africa could be a video all its own, as the situation differed between regions and across time, completely politically reshaping some regions and having only minor impacts on others. Maybe I'll cover this topic at some point, although I do find it a tad dark for my channel (researching slavery always leaves me feeling a bit depressed).
@@SomasAcademy Indeed so, and well put. Thumbs Up, btw.
Cheers!
Hopefully this video will enlighten people and readjust their views about African history as a whole.
Also, the bit about "tyrannical monarchs" coming from a European lens? Is just... wow
Thank you for this🙏🏾
Excellent insights. Most of my African history knowledge is either Sub-Saharan or North African. This fills in a lot of the middle.
The Sahara is a sea or an ocean. And caravans are like ships. And aazas are like islands. I don't know why you don't agree with this.
Simply pay attention to the video and you'll understand the dispute lol
It seems more like an argument of semantics and just saying he's wrong because you want to assert your authority. You think the same thing regarding the Saharah as an ocean.
@SomasAcademy
@@dl2839 Literally just watch the video, I didn't dispute the analogy because I simply disagreed with the wording, I disputed the analogy because of the point he used it to make. If he'd said "The Sahara was like an ocean filled with islands, and camel caravans acted like ships, regularly bringing things across this ocean by hopping between these islands" then we wouldn't be here. What he said was that the Saharan acted like an ocean by isolating Sub-Saharan Africa off from the rest of the Old World, which, as I establish in the video, is wildly inaccurate. That was my argument, not semantics.
Which way of transportation is more effective: by land or by sea (not rivers, but a huge body of water)? Genuine question
@@comradekapibarchik7997 It depends on the body of water and the types of boat you have. If it's calm, then water can always be more efficient, as boats can get a lot bigger than any land-based transportation method, and thus carry a lot more per trip. If the water is very rough and your boat isn't sufficiently large, heavy, and resilient, on the other hand, that can cancel out the advantages, since if your boat flips then none of those goods are reaching their destination.
We need more of this unbiased African content to counter all the misconceptions peddled out there. May Soma's Academy become the digital version of Timbuktu University.
Thank you so much!
>Sees Economics Explained has uploaded a new video.
>"It's not just racist stereotypes, we have an actual academic source!"
>Watches the video.
>It's just racist stereotypes.
Great video. I always find it mind-boggling to hear people who clearly don't know anything about African history quote ideas from periods where people were openly racist, as if it's not at all racist. Saying Africans did not have the wheel, when literally the Garamantes depict themselves, riding chariots is mind-boggling. The nubians depict themselves openly with wheels, along with the aksumites. Rock art all throughout the sahara shows brown and dark brown people riding horses traversing the Sahara, yet somehow it was a barrier? Its like no new information penetrates their bubble past the year 1900. They talk about only mud huts, when literally you have many stone ruins all throughout Africa from all different periods. You have to constantly play whackamole with these people as when you put down one, 5 more popup somewhere else.
Thank you! Not to disagree with your comment, but I also want to point out that even societies that did build their houses out of mud are no less worthy of respect than those that built with stone, earthen construction comes with some great advantages over some other materials like helping to maintain a constant, comfortable indoor temperature in hot areas! My mother had a neighbor who lived in a mud hut back in India, and she preferred to hang out at their house because it was much cooler during the day. The way people talk about mud huts as if they're a mark of cultural inferiority is purely a cultural bias - it doesn't take more cultural sophistication to build in stone, it just takes large stone deposits (which many parts of Africa didn't have) and a cultural preference for that material over other options!
@SomasAcademy not a disagreement at all. I just find people's ignorance to say that Africa has nothing but mudhuts, when literally you have stone structures in Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, and Axum in full view to be quite silly. In addition to the many ruins all over Africa. It's just a testament to how one can not know anything, yet talk about a subject as if they know even the bare minimum.
@@choicesii1For some people, the only way that they can feel important is to look down on someone else.