Africa is not a monolith. Neither is development. North Africa was pretty advanced if I recall correctly with people like Mansa Musa and there were very significant cultural and scientific developments in the Muslim world at the time. I think that Europeans had better armaments, armor, naval technology and possibly construction ability. However that is a result of Europe having more easily attainable iron and coal deposits, constant war and England being an island. African animals are also more or less impossible to domesticate (except camels and maybe zebras, but not really) and this gave Europeans a leg up in agriculture and prioritized urban development which in turn leads to ideas spreading faster and more technological development. I think a lot of the gap was due to Europe having more cities, which also allowed for biological warfare. Parts of Africa were incredibly wealthy and developed and parts more or less operated off sustenance farming.
Great Britain is an Island, England is part of that island. Sorry but i gotta point this out when i see fit, cause all of the countries that make up Great Britain played a part in its history, and it’s not fair to leave them out.
I would hazard a guess that the relative smallness of Europe played a factor as well. Less distance between all the major city-centers meant easier dissemination of ideas and trade.
This line of argument makes it seem like there is a set amount of city centers when the amount of city centers is a result of dense populations and urbanisation. The thing you need to look at is why there was no urbanisation to the same extent. Europe was in no way unique in this regard, India, China, Mexico and the Andean societies were at a similar level in the early modern era.
Looking at urbanisation as the ultimate point of a society and development is also kind of a pitfall of traditional eurocentric history writing.
![[R*dittor] Why did Africa never develop? I'm not racist, just measuring skulls for science](https://lemmygrad.ml/pictrs/image/54ab8819-046a-4d8b-945b-a808d47f162d.jpeg){kind=link}
Africa is not a monolith. Neither is development. North Africa was pretty advanced if I recall correctly with people like Mansa Musa and there were very significant cultural and scientific developments in the Muslim world at the time. I think that Europeans had better armaments, armor, naval technology and possibly construction ability. However that is a result of Europe having more easily attainable iron and coal deposits, constant war and England being an island. African animals are also more or less impossible to domesticate (except camels and maybe zebras, but not really) and this gave Europeans a leg up in agriculture and prioritized urban development which in turn leads to ideas spreading faster and more technological development. I think a lot of the gap was due to Europe having more cities, which also allowed for biological warfare. Parts of Africa were incredibly wealthy and developed and parts more or less operated off sustenance farming.
Great Britain is an Island, England is part of that island. Sorry but i gotta point this out when i see fit, cause all of the countries that make up Great Britain played a part in its history, and it’s not fair to leave them out.
I apologize to the tea addicts
No need to apologise. Im making the world a better place one american at a time.
I would hazard a guess that the relative smallness of Europe played a factor as well. Less distance between all the major city-centers meant easier dissemination of ideas and trade.
This line of argument makes it seem like there is a set amount of city centers when the amount of city centers is a result of dense populations and urbanisation. The thing you need to look at is why there was no urbanisation to the same extent. Europe was in no way unique in this regard, India, China, Mexico and the Andean societies were at a similar level in the early modern era.
Looking at urbanisation as the ultimate point of a society and development is also kind of a pitfall of traditional eurocentric history writing.
Yeah, although what’s odd is that Europeans traveled less because they didn’t make pilgrimages to Mecca