I think this illustrates the underlying problem with these types of threads. We can pick and choose a time in a civilzation’s history and say, “aha!”, but that really depends on our own knowledge of that civilzation’s history…or our agenda.
Not to pick on Pool, but the common believe is that Japan was an isolated civilzation, which is true; but they weren’t always so. When Kozmik asks, that maybe a lack of contact with outside forces is what ‘retards’, a civilization’s growth, you can’t point to Japan as an example, because Japan did have contact with other civilizations before they closed themselves off and that only lasted a couple of hundred years or so…
To use an example I’ve cited before, Japan just before the Tokugawa dynasty cut off outside contact had, in all likelihood, the most advanced firearms manufacturing on earth; Japanese troops were the most gunpowder-armed soldiers in the history of the world to that point, and were universally discarding swords and spears in favour of guns.
Japan simply was not an isolated civilization; they were, culturally speaking, China Lite, and had adopted a lot of technology from the west.
One important factor was the issue of no common language. Europe had one (Latin) which served to allow for diplomatic contatc, religious unity, and commonality of procedures between the countries of Europe. Africa by contrast, was a c ollectionof tribes with limited communications. There simply was no way for nation-states to emerge, because of the tribal nature of African society. No communication=no trade, no trade=no technological advancement. Suppose the Emir of Timbuktu wanted to improve the efficiency of the salt trade-why would he want to increase his output of salt? This was no need to convert from caravans to wagon trains, because all he would do is lower his profits from the sale of the salt.
Africa had such limited markets and travel was so difficult, that no trading culture such as Europe had, ever evolved there.
You’re leading the horse with the cart, there. Cultures that have a reason to trade or interact will develop or transfer a common language base or a trade pigeon. That Africa did not indicates that cross-continental trade was not profitable; the paucity of natural resources (for a hunter-gatherer level of civilization) argues for this, whereas trade–most famously along the Silk Road–was a key element in transfering technologies from one group/nation/culture to another. The trade of minerals, spices, textiles (particularly silk), and other durable goods was not only a major commerical business but fostered both political ties and conflict between nations.
Also, the Eurasian land mass–with its relatively easily traversed geological features–allowed for easy transportation, whereas (as you allude) sub-Saharan Africa has significant barriers–vast uninhabitable deserts and impenetrable jungles–that prevent transporting goods from one side to the other. Africa’s major navigatable waterway–the Nile River(s)–only traverses the north-east corner of Africa, and becomes unnavigatable around The Great Bend owing to the cascades, largely preventing it from being usable south of Egypt. Compare this to the relatively sedate Mississippi, which was crucial in commercial development of North America.
And while the areas of Southern Europe share a common language base–the Romance languages–the Germanic, Balto-Slavic, Celtic, and Persian/Aryan languages also distinctly existed in Europe and West Asia, not to mention the extinct language groups and the languages of the subcontinent of the Indo-European family. The variety of languages isn’t quite as expansive in Europe or Asia as in Africa, but it’s not as if a Catalian and an Armenian could make sense of each other’s statements. And not having a common language base with the cultures of Southeast and East Asia didn’t prevent trade between Europe and Asia; the parties developed trade languages and/or imposed their own language upon the indigenous culture, as the situation suited.
Language is a developmental attribute, not an inherent one; differing languages are a result of not having trade and cultural interchange, not a primary cause thereof.
Ok I admit Japan was a poor choice, they experienced two hundred years of isolation, during which they still traded, with Potuguese, but they were very limited of how much contact they could have with the population and kept under heavy guard virtually the whole time they were there, so although they were very successful in keeping the majority of the population from the exchange of many ideas, I believe during this time if someone sailed to another country the penalty was death, but inevitably the trade caused the isolation to end and the spread of ideas to begin very rapidly.
I’m not saying that any group were ever completely isolated since their beginning but there are island nations that were cut off for hundreds, even thousands of years from when pangea broke apart to form many islands, take madagascar for instance, which was virtually isolated completely for hundreds of years, or even Easter Island which was populated by the Polynesians, to say that an island civilization completely went stagnant, due to isolation and never progressed or changed, however primitive is wrong.
Well, well, well. Finally revenge for all the poor Poles who had to endure being the butt of all those Polack jokes from Americans. That IQ ranking by Lynn and Tanhanen places Poland’s IQ two points higher than the United States! Even though the claims made in their book are disputed, and it may be hokum, nevertheless it’s sweet sweet revenge to see Poles ranked higher in intelligence than Americans!
But at the point Japan isolated itself from the outside world, it was already a modern nation-state in every sense, with a huge, urbanized population. Japan’s modernity was a fait accompli long, long before “isolation” took place. Japan’s fate wasn’t determined between 1600 and 1800.
See, the technological advances that REALLY matter aren’t machine guns or sailing ships. They’re agriculture, animal husbandry, and urbanization. The various North American Indian tribes that fought American expansion in the 19th century picked up western military tools pretty quickly; Sitting Bull’s men were horse-mounted and gunpowder-armed. Their defeat was inevitable largely because they were simply incapable of sustaining a war against an industrial culture that lived in cities and produced enormous quantities of surplus food and was immune to many communicable diseases. The Sioux had none of those advantages. The Japanese did.
I’m not saying that any group were ever completely isolated since their beginning but there are island nations that were cut off for hundreds, even thousands of years from when pangea broke apart to form many islands, take madagascar for instance, which was virtually isolated completely for hundreds of years, or even Easter Island which was populated by the Polynesians, to say that an island civilization completely went stagnant, due to isolation and never progressed or changed, however primitive is wrong.
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Why do they lack modern technology? In the book ‘the end of poverty’ Jeffrey Sachs claims it is due to a lack of investment capital necessary to lift their economies off of the ground, creating a spiral of growth, new technology, growth, new technology, growth, etc. Economic growth doesn’t occur because the economies don’t work and they don’t work because they are still stuck at the bottom and not moving up. Plus african geography has alot of negatives to it like poor farming climate and various diseases that aren’t good for scientific progress.
I’m looking at the CIA factbook though and several african countries have growth rates in the 6-9% range. So that doesn’t really fit well with Sach’s claims. Perhaps Sachs was wrong.
6-9% growth isn’t that impressive when you’re starting out low. Any improvement at all in governance - just bringing in a little democracy and freedom - can do that.
African countries started out behind but got the double whammy of a pretty screwed up colonial legacy; most were granted independence without the benefit of having a real government in place, with predictable results. Some got lucky, like Botswana, which has a per capita GDP of $10,000 a year, many times higher than most of its neighbours. Botswana’s advantage is largely due to the fact that it’s had peaceful, civilian government, that’s mostly interested in running a nice country for the benefit of its people, pretty much from the moment it became independent. It’s not Pasadena, but it’s not a shithole by any means. This is as opposed to the thugs and thieves who run many other African states. African countries CAN become prosperous now, it’s just going to take a lot of hard work.
Although democracy is important, I don’t think it is the main cause of poverty or lack thereof. Sachs goes into detail with that viewpoint in his book. Some democratic and free countries like Kenya, Mali or Senegal still struggle. At the same time oppressive dictatorships like S. Korea & China experienced extremely fast growth.
Good point. RickJay. The example of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, though very different from the Lakota, comes to mind. The Ottomans rushed to import the latest military technology from France and Germany, and made a big push to upgrade their military colleges and armaments. They melted away just the same–why? Maybe because their political system had grown too heavy and sclerotic to allow them to govern and fight effectively.
For the record I wasn’t saying that isolation would help any civilization grow and prosper into an industrialized nation, but that an isolated country could retain a civilization, and still make some progress, albeit heavily slowed, at least for a limited amount of time. But there is no way an isolated non-industrialized nation, could ever survive for a long time, against one that was industrialized.
This is nonsense. Of course Africa had quite widespread trade, and widespread lingua francas – Hausa in the west of Africa, Swahili in the east, for example. And to say Africa had “no technological advancement” is just too, too much.
Yes and no ( though mostly yes ). To say Africa had no long distance trade is of course quite inaccurate - it did. West Africa had extensive trade networks, both trans-Saharan and between the various forest and savanna states. East Africa of course was dominated from the late 17th century by the Omani empire organized locally from the emporium at Zanzibar.
But while I’d agree Swahili had a fairly wide distribution as a trade language, from Kenya to Mozambique and penetrating as far west as eastern Zaire, I believe Hausa was a bit more geographically limited. It was more the principal language of the sultanate of Sokoto and immediate surrounding areas. In western west Africa trade was dominated by other groups, like the Mande-speaking Dyula that late in the colonial period backed the rise of the warlord Samori Toure.
Africa did have technology, trade networks and in some areas urbanization, it just lagged due to geographic isolation in comparison with the Mediterreanean basin at the point that technological advances began to accelerate rapidly. In the early 14th century, one would have been hard-pressed to distinguish between the mailed calvary of Mali vs. that of Morocco in terms of technology. By the late 16th they were lagging, as the battle of Tondibi in 1590 pointed out.
Hausa is understood and used as a trade language in many countries of West Africa. Wikipedia cites Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria and Togo, but I believe you could add at least Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal to the list. And as you mention, there were large empires in West Africa, of which Samori’s was only one. Trade links were extensive across the Sahara, from the Sahel to the coast, and along the Niger and Senegal Rivers. And that’s not counting extensive trade links with the Europeans.
ralph124c is guilty not just of overstatement, but of guessing.