r/history • u/ArtOak • Jan 13 '23
The idea of ‘precolonial Africa’ is vacuous and wrong | When ‘precolonial’ is used for describing African ideas, processes, institutions and practices, through time, it misrepresents them. Article
https://aeon.co/essays/the-idea-of-precolonial-africa-is-vacuous-and-wrong?utm_source=rss-feed267
u/LouisSaintJust1789 Jan 14 '23
“Pre colonial” is hardly a demeaning term. It’s no different from describing Britannia in 50BC as pre Roman
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u/darkslide3000 Jan 14 '23
The difference is that there are too few Celts (at least by cultural identity, not so much by genetics) left to become fake outraged about historians describing historical facts as they are, not as our modern and very period-specific sensibilities would prefer them to have been.
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u/Plarsetic_Paddy Jan 14 '23
Too few Celts
The Welsh, the descendants of and those with the closest cultural ties to the Britons subjugated by Rome still exist, they just don’t have people on Twitter to rage over this for them. I’m pretty sure most people in Africa would agree that their history changed massively when the colonials came along
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u/Usernametaken112 Jan 14 '23
The histories of ALL people's have massively changed in the last 400 years.
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u/WolfingMaldo Jan 14 '23
Of course, but this is a thread specifically related to colonialism and it’s effects
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u/ImmaPullSomeWildShit Jan 14 '23
Wales/Ireland/Scotland/Brittany
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u/blueshark27 Jan 14 '23
Everyone in the USA too, apparently
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u/Neb_Djed Jan 14 '23
Me, an Irish speaker: How many claiming that in America actively speak a Celtic language and are accepted as such by others in the community? Oh, oh I see.
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u/Neb_Djed Jan 14 '23
Bimíd fós feasta an inár maireachtaint ó háit go háit, but yah call it pre-Roman. Just wish every Wikipedia page didn't start with Rome, but that really is down to not enough people to update the articles if it bothers.
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u/IrishRage42 Jan 14 '23
Just as antebellum was misconstrued as being a racist term when it just describes a certain time period. Depending on what context you're talking about Africa saying pre colonial is totally acceptable.
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u/Kasekubrick Jan 14 '23
Nobody misconstrues the word antebellum. Its the glorification if the time period in America that is always the issue. You had the audacity to leave out context in that regard but not pre-colonial Africa.
The Antebellum South in America was literally the period of time between the War of 1812 and the Civil War. How can you call the glorification of a period in which “slavery as a positive good” led to the most devastating war in the history of this country, not racist?
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u/Cunningham01 Jan 14 '23
There was a great deal of difference between the colonialism of Greco-Rome and the Imperialist age. 'Pre-colonial' functionally refers to time before European people decided to pay a visit.
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u/AKravr Jan 14 '23
True, Roman "colonialism" was much harsher and deviating in the long term.
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u/Cunningham01 Jan 14 '23
I have to disagree. The colonialism of Africa, Australia and America (among others) effectively ended cultures in a dramatically short amount of time. An example, the British settlement in Tasmania led to an ever encroaching "black line" throughout the island which saw the groups there exterminated (almost entirely). That was less than 200 years ago. It's inpossible to compare "the long term" because we're still living with it.
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u/AKravr Jan 14 '23
I'll agree that we are living through the long term now but I can't think of any culture that survived the Roman Empire from within besides the Greeks, you could argue the Egyptians but the Greeks had already subsumed them. The Romans practiced complete cultural genocide. There are hundreds of more cultures and languages that survived and currently are surviving colonialism and its after effects.
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u/LouisSaintJust1789 Jan 14 '23
The Roman’s regularly annihilated tribes and cultures that did not submit to their will. The Belgae are perhaps one of the best examples. Their entire tribe was killed and enslaved. The conquest of Carthage was nothing more than genocide. The destruction of that city can be rightly compared to the worst atrocities during the period of European colonialism. To try and say that one is worse than the other is pointless
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u/Cunningham01 Jan 14 '23
I'm not trying to say that one atrocity is worse than another. That is ridiculous and frankly insulting.
My remarks are regarding ancient colonialism to that of Imperial powers. They are not comparable and it's an exercise in futility, you're right.
However, if we're talking about scale then I think Imperial colonialism has it beat. As cold hearted as it is, I don't live with the impacts of Roman colonialism, I live with British colonialism in Australia and all that entails.
They are not comparable but one is lived and the other is ancient.
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u/Borigh Jan 14 '23
Fascinating example of the euphemism treadmill, here.
We obviously need a way to refer to the time before Europeans started carving up African territory and rewriting its political and economic geography, but the actual fact that such a thing happened is so offensive that we must change the term every half-century or so.
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u/forestwolf42 Jan 14 '23
Preeurocolonialization?
I do agree with the point that precolonial tends to be used exclusively to refer to European colonization, and I feel like I definitely encounter people under the illusion that colonization is an inherently European activity, which is a harmful and inaccurate way to view history in so many ways.
However it's also true that this particular European colonization was, and continues to be historically important so we need a convenient way to refer to it, and pre/post colonial is a nice way to do that.
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u/zaypuma Jan 14 '23
Since it was occidental powers and cultures descended upon these places and told the stories in their language and from their point of view, it makes some sort of ironic sense that today's occidental powers and cultures return to tell revised stories, again in their own language and again from their point of view.
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u/Vo_Mimbre Jan 14 '23
The irony here being that if we were to create a new term for when "Europeans" (by landmass) started carving up African territory (by landmass), we're back to the Bronze Age at least. I totally agree. "European colonialism" is offensive and of a time of abject racist and supremacist beliefs written by invaders.
That's the problem with trying to simplify eras with ethnocentric terms that basically boil down to superior/dominant/invader vs inferior/submissive/defender terms. It's further exacerbated by geographical boundaries. Peoples in areas of what we call South America invaded Central, Central invaded North, western Europe and eastern Europe took turns invading each other.
Keep it to specific invaders and what they did. "Colonialism" sounds like bringing culture where needed. "Conquistador" meanwhile is much more accurate to that culture and action.
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u/pk10534 Jan 14 '23
To try and pretend the onset of large-scale European colonization wasn’t a critical juncture for Africa that altered huge swaths of people, governments, and society is just ridiculous. Africa can be multicultural and have had immigrants/emigrants and still have a point in history where things changed drastically. The UK had machines and industry before the Industrial Revolution, that doesn’t mean that’s not a good place to separate the before and after
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u/AKravr Jan 14 '23
The place where France now is had everything different before the Romans came. Genetically, culturally, linguistically. There have been some modern Gaelic cultural revanchism but the actual pre-Roman culture of La Tène has been completely lost.
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u/fantomen777 Jan 14 '23 edited Jan 14 '23
Never heard about things like Pre-Roman Britain? Or the Moorish Era in Spain.
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u/CowboyOfScience Jan 13 '23
Is just an arbitrary line. They get drawn quite a bit in history. Here in the US we can it "pre-contact". It's actually a pretty logical point to draw a line. The New World changed DRASTICALLY once non-indigenous people showed up.
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u/MattSR30 Jan 14 '23
I feel like ‘the Middle Ages’ is the ultimate form of arbitrary line-drawing.
450 to 1450 is a massive timeframe to lump under a single name. I even find myself doing it, though, because people ask what I studied in and I just wind up saying ‘the Middle Ages.’
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u/Neon-Ink Jan 14 '23
But isn't it subdivided into early, high and late middle ages? It's like a form of historical revision in which people are trying to be respectful or accommodating, but in doing so lose helpful markers. When people ask me what I studied I say "Early modern Europe." It's less time than your period but still a substantial amount of time. We still need some starting point no matter how arbitrary.
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u/Zenso_Si Jan 14 '23
It’s kind of reflected in the name to Middle Ages is pretty non specific and defined by have two boundaries. I guess you could say that it’s defined by the rise and decline in feudalism, but even that doesn’t take into account places like china.
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u/ImmaPullSomeWildShit Jan 14 '23
Middle ages is used in relation to Europe I think. I thought in China they divided historical periods by dynasties, but I might and probably am wrong
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u/Paladingo Jan 14 '23
The rough markers for the middle ages are the fall of the Western Roman Empire and then the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire, both of which had profound effects in Europe and the Mediterranean.
Its pretty West-centric, but like was said, its an arbitrary date to note eras of change to help neaten things up.
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u/monsantobreath Jan 14 '23
How could we ever sufficiently define any era that isn't overly centric to one area or another? Surely time is relative to geography in terms of how we define its parameters.
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u/JojenCopyPaste Jan 14 '23
But the middle ages are west-centric. Just as talking about the warring states period in China as a time period in Europe, it doesn't make sense to talk about the middle ages in China. Same with the Middle East and North Africa. They had their own stuff going on.
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u/blueshark27 Jan 14 '23
It can be helpful for contextualising and thats the only sense i've seen it used, like if you were telling someone about when the Mongols took over China you might say "in the Middle Ages" as most people in the west will get what you mean: while the middle ages were happening in Europe, this other thing was happening in China.
That sort of periodisatiom helps if you dont know exact centuries or if the person you're talking to is not big into history. Saying "the 13th century" might not really tell them much, but middle ages people have an idea. Usually wrong and stereotypical, but an idea nonetheless.
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u/ImmaPullSomeWildShit Jan 14 '23
That’s why some people use fall of Constantinople, Battle of Mohács or even the French Revolution as the end of Middle Ages. Also I’ve never heard of Middle Ages being applied outside of Europe
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u/grufolo Jan 14 '23
Of course it is, and of course because it was written by European historians
Categories always reflect those who draw the lines
Nevertheless they are useful, and it is perfectly fine is Chinese history has different ages related to the different dynasties.... Who cares
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u/AX11Liveact Jan 14 '23
It's between the final collapse of Roman influence and the Renaissance resp. the invention of the book press. There's nothing arbitrary about that, specifically as 450 C.E. is not a fixed number.
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u/Paladingo Jan 14 '23
*Western Roman influence.
And the secondary date thats the start of the Renaissance is the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans, ending the Eastern Roman Empire.
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u/JojenCopyPaste Jan 14 '23
Almost as if all of Europe was just waiting around for 1000 years for the empire to finally fall before it could move on.
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u/Siegnuz Jan 14 '23
It didn't help that artists/scholars from ERE immigrated to the west and hugely influenced western culture when the empire finally fall
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u/rammo123 Jan 14 '23
It's not "Francocentric" to talk about pre- and post-conquest England either. Fact is some foreign interventions have huge internal effects and mark a legitimate milestone in a location's social, political and military history.
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u/Lord0fHats Jan 14 '23
To point out how it's even more arbitrary, the Vikings got there a few hundred years before Columbus, and just maybe Southeast Polynesians got there even before that!
But when Columbus arrived it basically flipped the entire continent on its head in the course of about 35 years and the other events had more nebulous/unclear consequences so 'Pre-Columbian' it is!
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u/BrokenEye3 Jan 14 '23
Columbus is important to history not because he was the first to discover America but because he was the last
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u/OuchieMuhBussy Jan 14 '23
Also the greater contact which allowed the transmission of disease in a way that the Vikings didn’t (as answered 50x on askhistorians).
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u/Lord0fHats Jan 14 '23
The early modern Europeans also had more diseases to spread. Small Pox wouldn't become firmly established in the European population, perpetually cycling in and out of pandemic outbreaks, until after the Crusades for example and small pox is a ravager.
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u/UNC_Samurai Jan 14 '23
There was a study a couple of years ago about the impact of population loss on the climate. The introduction of Europeans and all the behaviors and diseases that came with them, resulted in a population loss that had a measurable effect on global cooling.
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u/Thelk641 Jan 14 '23
It's 3am at the end of a long day. Reading this I just realized why it's called "Pre-Columbian"... Columbus... seems obvious, but it wasn't to me for some reason. I've never been interested enough to search it, but every time I heard it, some part of my brain wondered what Columbia had to do with mayan and other populations like them, after all it's just one country... wait. Columbia. It's named after Columbus.
I don't know if I'm happy to have finally solved this puzzle for myself or if I feel very dumb. Either way, thank you random redditor for having put it in a way that made my brain tick.
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u/Lord0fHats Jan 14 '23
No worries.
I once thought it was 'before Columbia.' You know. The country XD
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u/CowboyOfScience Jan 14 '23
You're welcome. There's an important difference you're missing. Columbus was an Italian guy. Colombia is a country in South America. Or as one of my professors used to put it: "Less 'U' and more 'O'".
And yes - 'pre-Columbian' is spelled with a 'U'.
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u/DaddyCatALSO Jan 14 '23
The Vikings fialed,a nd Polynesians didn't like continents, their economy wasn't suited to them
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u/FoolInTheDesert Jan 14 '23
Not to mention the Inuit, paleo-eskimo and multiple other migrations of peoples who are genetically, culturally and linguistically distinct from each other.
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u/retroretaliation Jan 14 '23
The article points out that there wasn’t really a period in Africa were new comers suddenly showed up or arrived, and that alot of African communities had been multicultural and interacting with europe before the colonial age. So i’m not sure I get your point here.
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u/jl_theprofessor Jan 14 '23
There is a definitive point where colonialism came to Africa, which is significantly different from saying people came to Africa throughout its history. We can pretend as if the Portuguese didn't bring about a significant shift in Europe's approach to Africa, but that wouldn't be useful. Because from that point onward there is a shift in the trends regarding how Europe viewed Africa and one that has a legacy that persists even today.
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u/BrokenEye3 Jan 14 '23
Yeah, but interacting with foreigners vs being taken over by them is still a pretty big change
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u/darkslide3000 Jan 14 '23
The article is cherry-picking its examples heavily to support that thesis. Contact with non-Mediterranean parts of Africa (i.e. ~90% of the continent) was incredibly sparse and limited before the sudden influx during the colonial age.
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u/AKravr Jan 14 '23
Exactly, caravans crossing the Sahara were 99% indigenous to the area. The mass contact with Europeans, really at first, the Portuguese, was an entirely different affair.
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u/mollymuppet78 Jan 14 '23
I've never thought about it that way. Precolonial is what was going on in a place before colonizers came. It's neither good nor bad. It's just a frame of reference. It doesn't misrepresent them any more than saying "post independence" or "pre-revolution" in speaking of other places.
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u/appollyon_11 Jan 14 '23
It's a term that describes precolonial Africa, nothing more. It's on a par with pre Roman Britain or pre industrial Europe.
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u/HolidayInn9 Jan 14 '23
I believe the validity/impact of this statement is killed when “them” is used. This is arguing for someone else. Put your energy towards questioning someone who this history belongs to as to whether they have a stance on the use of ‘pre-colonial’ as a description. It may be an insulting or malice description when viewed from outside by someone who wants to be offended for someone else, but it may also be important to “them” as a valid description of a turning point description to when their history was affected by outsiders or such.
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u/Kronos5678 Jan 14 '23
They lump Africa together in this as well. It constantly talks about Roman and Ottoman "colonization" of Africa. The Romans were not a European empire, they were a Mediterranean empire which later expanded into northern Europe. They mention nothing of the Greek rulers of Egypt for hundreds of years, tying Egypt into this Mediterranean identity. The Roman conquests of Carthage and Egypt were of Hellenized groups of the same Mediterranean identity as Rome, and thus is no different to European wars among themselves in the middle ages.
The Ottomans were also not a European empire at all, and had far more in common with the Egyptians and North Africans than they did with the French or Austrians etc. They were united by an Islamic identity, and still the Mediterranean identity still existed, with the Ottomans in Anatolia for the very reason of the Mediterranean identity: the ease of trade due to the many islands and coastline, and with this ease of trade, taxing popular routes became very profitable, and in the case of the Ottomans this was specifically the Dardanelles. To call this European colonization of Africa shows both a distinct lack of knowledge and a grouping together of Africa as a whole, ignoring the very different cultures and identities that those in Egypt had opposed to those in Kongo.
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u/smilelaughenjoy Jan 14 '23
"The Romans were not a European empire, they were a Mediterranean empire which later expanded into northern Europe."
You're not wrong that Rome/Italy is Mediterranean, but it is also European. Part of Turkey (previously, part of the Ottoman Empire) is physically in Europe, and culturally, they have influences from Roman/Byzantine.
Egypt is African, but borders on West Asia ("Middle East") and it has been colonized by Arab tribes (Umayyad Empire/Caliphate) which is why Egypt is mostly muslim and speaks Arabic.
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u/Kronos5678 Jan 14 '23
I agree that they are in Europe, but at the time there was no European identity, someone in Rome would have far more in common with someone in Carthage than someone in Denmark.
I was not talking about physically as that is not relevant, I am well aware that Egypt is in Africa.
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u/smilelaughenjoy Jan 14 '23 edited Jan 14 '23
Even today, Europe is not a unified culture, so "European" refers to location (where a person's country is or where the person's ancestors came from if they live outside of Europe). Even today, many Europeans feel more attached to identifying with their country or with a region of their country instead of as "European", with the only exception being Budapest (Source: European Quality of Government Index 2021).
Denmark and Italy/Rome are still different, but Spain (which was a part of the Roman Empire) is more similar to Italy than Northern Germanic countries like Sweden or Norway. German tribes took over the more northern parts of Europe (Denmark/Sweden/Norway), while the Romans took over the more southern areas such as Spain and Greece as well as France.
Morocco (in North Africa like Carthage was), was controlled by Spain at one point, so at that point in time, Morocco in North Africa would have had more in common with Spain in Europe than with Saudi Arabia. It is the Arab colonizing that caused a change. Colonization is what make the main difference rather than label of the continent (Europe/European"). US is American in terms of continent/location but culturally, it's European rather than Native American.
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u/Kronos5678 Jan 14 '23
I would argue today an Italian would have more in common with a German than with a libyan
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u/smilelaughenjoy Jan 14 '23
And Libya also got taken over by Muslims, so of course the culture changed in Libya too and became less influenced by Europe/Rome since ancient times.
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u/Kronos5678 Jan 14 '23
What is your point here? I am saying that it was not colonization because it was just like France conquering Belgium or something, and you are trying to argue against that by just saying stuff. What is your point?
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u/smilelaughenjoy Jan 14 '23
If you forgot the point I was making, it was in my first response to you:
"You're not wrong that Rome/Italy is Mediterranean, but it is also European."
If you're talking about the colonization of Africa, then I also disagree with this statement that you made: "I am saying that it was not colonization because it was just like France conquering Belgium or something"
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u/Dottox Jan 14 '23
It is true that the idea of precolonial Africa as a blank and underdeveloped place is a stereotype that has been perpetuated for a long time and has contributed to a distorted view of African history and culture. It is important to keep in mind that precolonial societies in Africa had complex political and economic systems, and a rich cultural and artistic history. It is necessary to re-evaluate our understanding of African history and recognize the richness and complexity of precolonial societies on the continent in order to have a more accurate and complete understanding of Africa and its place in the world.
It is also important to note that it is necessary to have a vision from different perspectives and not limit ourselves to Eurocentric history, as this allows for a deeper and more complete understanding of historical events and their impact on current society.
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u/gammonbudju Jan 14 '23 edited Jan 14 '23
and underdeveloped place is a stereotype
Underdeveloped is relative. It's arguably undeveloped right now.
That language is used by the UN right now to refer to Africa as a region.
https://unctad.org/topic/least-developed-countries/list
It is important to keep in mind that precolonial societies in Africa had complex political and economic systems, and a rich cultural and artistic history.
Large swaths of Africa did not have any written history until the arrival of Europeans.
Africa is/was underdeveloped, a large part of it lacks any written history prior to European settlement. It's not prejudiced, racist or discriminatory to say that. It's just fact.
It doesn't make Africans inferior. They were just in a different period of development relative to other parts of the world.
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u/MulatoMaranhense Jan 14 '23 edited Jan 14 '23
While I agree with you on the semantics of the word underdeveloped, I really must question your benchmarks. On the other side of the Atlantic, the Andean peoples built kingdoms and confederations that controlled sizeable areas of modern Ecuator, Peru, Bolivia and Chile, and none had written language. Similarly, none had figured ironworking, which was well-known by the Africans. Meanwhile, in the Far East and with relatively more contact with Europe, had little knowledge of glassmaking and neglected their naval studies. I think that talking about "they were in a different development periods" is wrong as it assumes there is an standard, and that standard is the European.
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u/Szabe442 Jan 14 '23
I really must question your benchmarks.
What benchmark would you use to consider African countries before colonization developed then?
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u/MulatoMaranhense Jan 14 '23
I don't divide things between developed or underdevelop unless we are talking about things in the post-WWII world. I just say "things were this way before the Europeans arrived" and "things were this way after they arrived".
Besides, a good number of places in Africa and Americas were not "uplifted" by the Europeans. They just said "now you pay taxes to us" and left at that instead of immediatelly establishing anything resembling what was the average in the metropolis at the time.
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u/Plarsetic_Paddy Jan 14 '23
I think you’re conflating written sources with development, Africa housed huge kingdoms with thriving societies at one point but didn’t have much of the same technology as Europe did. Development isn’t linear might I add so it’s not exactly like Africa was underdeveloped, it was simply developing differently. Nowadays though after having the European structure of development and technology imposed on them most countries in Africa really are underdeveloped, some are getting significantly better though
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u/gammonbudju Jan 14 '23
If you read my comment I'm not saying all Africa. It should be obvious that I'm saying there are large parts of Africa without a written history before Europeans showed up.
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u/DefenestrationPraha Jan 14 '23
So is the idea of "modernity", "Stone Age" and other generalizations. Trying to squish huge periods of time and huge regions of the world into a few words is necessarily reductive; that said, we have to do it, otherwise some ideas would not be expressible at all, or only in an awkward way.
For example, precolonial Americas didn't have smallpox and Stone Age societies didn't have metal tools. In such statements, the generic and not very exact word does good job in communicating something, and it doesn't make sense to try to ban it.
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u/FrostPDP Jan 14 '23
You know, as someone with a BA in history and thus some understanding of what's being said...
I kinda get it! And, in fact, as I read (I'm pretty deep, but not finished), I find myself agreeing more. Don't get me wrong, I'm not sure that the label is completely useless (it might be, it might not be - I'm leaning towards it needing replacement), but the question that the author raises about empires existing in Africa is compelling. Africa was certainly colonized, but not in the same sense as the Americas or Oceania. Africa was very much a part of the "Old World," as evidenced by, y'know, ancient Egypt, among many others.
I mean, sure, it was colonized and heavily partitioned by European powers in the 1800's, but it was exploited long before and long after that. Still is, when you think about it.
To be fair, I'm no specialist in African history. I was more trained in Hellenistic and/or New World history. I couldn't begin to suggest what the new definitional points should be, but I do know that there are ways to organize that.
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u/SimpleYellowShirt Jan 14 '23
When Europeans left Africa, the African nations were disenfranchised with the West, they sided with Russian communist. This was their biggest mistake and the reason why they are so far behind. Not because of the word "pre colonialism". Look at the capitalism in South Africa as a comparison. South Africa is booming compared to the rest.
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u/Thereminista Jan 14 '23
Reminds me of when "developers" refer to pristine forest or open land as "undeveloped". Leave it the hell alone! It's great the way it is!
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u/drfiz98 Jan 14 '23
> For example, if ‘precolonial Morocco’ refers to the time before France colonised Morocco, it must deny that the 800-year Moorish colonisation of the Iberian Peninsula, much of present-day France and much of North Africa was a colonialism.
Comparing hundreds of years of developing Muslim Iberia into a center of culture and knowledge to the rape and exploitation of Africa at the hands of Europeans is laughable. Developments made under Islamic rule transformed the Iberian peninsula from being a backwater of the old Roman Empire to one of the richest parts of Europe. After all, the industries needed to finance the colonization of the New World had to come from somewhere.
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Jan 14 '23
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u/Whiplash17488 Jan 14 '23 edited Jan 14 '23
Can a similar argument be made when we say “Roman Empire” or “Achaemenid Empire”?
In some context saying “pre-colonial x” makes sense. It doesn’t make it a rule that time only began when the place was colonized.
Belgium is a colonizer. But the area of Belgium itself was also colonized, and conquered under many flags. That is the way of history is it not?
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u/only4adults Jan 15 '23
I hate how academics go on and on as if they get paid by the word. This article definitely needs a TLDR.
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u/Known-Command3097 Jan 20 '23
Wait here’s an idea- seems like the problem with “precolonial” as a term is that it’s too vague, cause, yknow, being colonial is a thing that has happened all throughout history on just about every landmass. So, how about “industrial colonialism”, or “industrocolonialism” ? I mean, let’s be honest, it was a very short period where a lot of stuff happened, but it’ll just be a footnote in a few hundred years.
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u/Saucialiste Jan 14 '23
I'm open to be corrected, but I'm not sure the main arguments of the author actually support their thesis.
First, "precolonial" is used to describe the Americas, Australia, and possibly places like South-East Asia. It's not a special way to demean Africa, it's simply a way, albeit western-centric, to state there was a period when European Great Powers essentialy tried to subjigate the world.
Second, there's a lot of energy deployed to illustrate the great variety of cultures and power dynamics of Africa troughout history. But the reductive part of "Precolonial Africa" is not precolonial, it's Africa. Can a continent is a useful scope to talk about the human experience? It's debatable, but "Modern Africa" is as reductive, and the same is true, even more so, with something like "Ancient Asia".