In the realms of gold: exploring Africa’s rich history | Hacker News Reader

In the realms of gold: exploring Africa’s rich history

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27 pointsantigizmo10 comments

When one of the chapters was posted here [0] I got really interested in the book but this review convinced me it's not going to be a big dense book. I'm going to buy it.

[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18447923

I've been reading about political geography, and it's really made me rethink African history, and the history of other non-Europe/non-US regions as well. For example, why didn't Egypt ever grow its empire? Wood, or the lack thereof. There are very few trees along the Egyptian part of the Nile, so they never became a seafaring power the way the Greeks and Romans did.

The remarks in this article about castles made of grass plays into it, too... durable architecture tends to stick around long after the culture that built it disappears, and it protects other, less durable artifacts like clothing and tools.

Do you have any book recommendations on this topic?

I just finished Prisoners of Geography, by Tim Marshall.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_navy The Ancient Egyptians had both had a navy and an empire.

Indeed, right at the top of the article, it states they had to travel to Lebanon to get wood suitable for military ships. This sort of thing makes naval power costly, relative to having suitable trees growing right by your ports.

That said, Egypt has always been a major regional power. Why? Geography. It has the Nile delta, a great breadbasket. And it has control of one side of the Red Sea, the natural seagoing trade route between the Mediterranean basin and Asia. Egypt will always be important due to those two geographic features.

The major difference between Egypt and the nearby powers of the bronze and early iron ages was that it was surrounded by desert on two sides of the heartland, the Nile valley. Few managed to invade successfully and the only major threats were from Libya, Kush, and the Levant.

If Jared Diamond has formed your views, I think a great next book to read is Why Nations Fail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Nations_Fail

This particular mindset wasn't based on Jared Diamond, although he did work a related idea. For example, his observation that the geography of the Mediterranean allowed agricultural innovations from the middle east to spread across southern Europe and northern Africa (and the Mediterranean allowed for easy seagoing trade and exchange of ideas), while the north/south orientation of the Americas slowed the spread of technology there.

Tim Marshall's point in Prisoners of Geography is different. He argues that fundamental geographic features have large-scale impacts on area economies. For example, the east coast of South America is mostly cliffs, so there are few natural ports at all, and fewer large ones. Contrast this with the east coast of the US, which has incredible natural ports at Boston, New York, and Chesapeake Bay - sheltered and deep-water. Along the same lines, he compares the economic impact of rivers like the Mississippi, the Rhine, and the Yellow River to rivers that are just as large, but hard to navigate, or pass through lands not suitable for agriculture.

For a small scale comparison, think of the economy of the San Francisco Bay area, relative to, say, Big Sur.

I hope it doesn't restrict itself to sub-saharan Africa and covers the history of Carthage, Egypt and Roman Africa.I think the history of Egypt itself could fill many, many volumes.

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