The Shape of Africa

  1. Why did Africa fall behind (relative to the rest of the world) after a head start?

    • Disease

    • Difficult to domesticate and spread crops

    • Geography (such as rivers) that hinder Africa’s success in the trading industry

      • landlocked

  2. How does Africa continue to be shaped by its long history and geography?

    • still fixing health problems

    • landlocked nations

    • economic disparities

  3. What are some of the author’s recommendations for improving Africa’s future outlook?

    • literally just look at the reading for this question

How did one continent come to embody such extremes (stereotypes)?

  • North and South temperate zones

    • Make it difficult for plants and animals to domesticate/move south

      • Require adaptations to climates, seasons, day lengths, and diseases -etc.

  • Long human presence

    • Big animals surviving in Africa today

      • Older species began to die out as humans inhabited their native land because they didn’t have time to acclimate and learn to adapt and fear human hunters

      • Eventually over time they learned to fear humans

    • Diseases

      • Microbes formed in animals and evolved to human disease… takes a lot of time for evolution though, SO

        • They require the least adaptation to jump species are the African great apes and monkeys, which is why disease is prominent mainly in Africa

  • Geography

    • Temperate zones are successful

    • HOWEVER- landlocked areas

      • Only way to transport goods is rivers/waterways