Sunday, October 6, 2013

What is an example of imperialism in Africa?

There are so many!Countries have been invading other countries for just about as long as there have been countries---but some of the worst examples of imperialism involve European countries such as France and the UK invading African countries such as Algeria and South Africa.From about the mid 1700s to the early 1900s, European countries basically invaded and carved up pieces of Africa between each other without any regard for what the people living...

There are so many!

Countries have been invading other countries for just about as long as there have been countries---but some of the worst examples of imperialism involve European countries such as France and the UK invading African countries such as Algeria and South Africa.

From about the mid 1700s to the early 1900s, European countries basically invaded and carved up pieces of Africa between each other without any regard for what the people living there thought on the matter. They extracted and sold natural resources such as gold and diamonds. They even captured and bought and sold people in the Atlantic slave trade.

Many of the problems Africa still has today can be traced in part to this history of imperialism. We can even see a difference in outcomes between French and Belgian colonies, which were almost entirely extractive, and British colonies, which at least made a small effort toward building local infrastructure. Countries such as South Africa and Egypt that were colonized by Britain are now generally doing better in terms of economic development than countries such as Burkina Faso (colonized by France) or Congo (colonized by Belgium).

There are so many examples to choose from, you could pretty much pick whatever country in Africa most interests you and look up its history---odds are, you'll find that it had some history of European imperialism.

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