ipl-logo

Summary Of Basil Davidson's The Legacy

784 Words4 Pages

In The Legacy, Basil Davidson discusses the legacies of colonialism in Africa and gives an insight on modern Africa and the successes and downfalls that it possesses. Moreover, he states that many of the issues seen in modern day Africa are not new and have their roots in the long years of European colonialism that profoundly shaped and continues to shape the continent. Throughout the documentary, various themes regarding postcolonial Africa are mentioned in depth. A few of the themes that Davidson highlights are modernization, ethnicism, corruption, inequality, dictatorship, and neocolonialism.
At the beginning of the documentary, Davidson notes that the introduction of modern cities is a legacy of colonialism. While this was a great step …show more content…

Davidson makes reference to Idi Amin of Uganda as well as Jean-Bédel Bokassa of the Central African Republic, who both are examples of leaders who mirrored the actions of their colonial predecessors. Their rule was similar to that of European colonizers in that they thrived off of the inequality of Africans and took part in lavish celebrations while the majority of their country remained poor. While some believe this corruption is due to some innate greed possessed solely by Africans, a look into history tells you that modern day African rulers have simply just inherited and embraced the lifestyle of the European rules before them, which unfortunately included the massive hoarding of wealth. This hoarding of wealth did not come without any opposition however, which brings about the next theme of dictatorship and how rulers such as Bokassa and Amin maintained their positions of power through the crushing of dissent. The suppression of protests was done through the torture and murder of anyone who criticized, which is exactly how the European colonizers ruled out any opposition and another example of the brutal legacies of

Show More
Related
422 Words | 2 Pages

Throughout this weeks reading on Chapter 4, we focus in on the Progressive Era and the establishment of urban America. The industrial revolution was at its peak and the United States was developing rapidly. Immigration, manufacturing output, and urban development grew faster than any other time in the nation’s history. Not only that, but scientific developments changed lives and revolutionary theories challenged traditional beliefs. As Rury suggests, “ . . .

Read More
1431 Words | 6 Pages

Amadou Hampaté Bâ is extremely detailed throughout the book, The Fortunes of Wangrin, in explaining the colonial world in West African societies. He provides multiple examples in this work of fiction that precisely describe the factual aspects of African colonialism that we have discussed in class. I will point out a few of the examples that Bâ uses such as: limitations colonial governments set on Africans, the Métis relationships within colonies, and issues that arose, not only between Europeans and Africans, but within the native African communities as well. I will then point out certain details from the book that do not perfectly reflect the components of colonialism that we have studied in lecture.

Read More
830 Words | 4 Pages

Based on the documents provided, it can be argued that the Europeans were unwelcome and sparked a great disturbance among the African people during new imperialism period all across Africa based on the following perspectives from documents 4 and 9 which demonstrate brutal violence towards Africans, documents 6 and 7 which call for help to remove the presence of the Europeans, and documents 2 and 3 represent how these Africans state wish to avoid being under European power. Throughout the history of European colonization, there is evidence that the Europeans have disrupted and separated majority of the African continent. Based on the documents provided, each document individually states their own problems with the European occupying African

Read More
485 Words | 2 Pages

This chapter addresses the central argument that African history and the lives of Africans are often dismissed. For example, the author underlines that approximately 50,000 African captives were taken to the Dutch Caribbean while 1,600,000 were sent to the French Caribbean. In addition, Painter provides excerpts from the memoirs of ex-slaves, Equiano and Ayuba in which they recount their personal experience as slaves. This is important because the author carefully presents the topic of slaves as not just numbers, but as individual people. In contrast, in my high school’s world history class, I can profoundly recall reading an excerpt from a European man in the early colonialism period which described his experience when he first encountered the African people.

Read More
1889 Words | 8 Pages

As Frantz Facon once stated that “imperialism leaves behind germs of rot which we must clinically detect and remove from our land by from our minds as well”, one can assert without much exertion that such European powers, in the course of Imperialism, indeed, brought about an array of irreversible impairments such as ethnic tensions, slavery, increased local warfare, and many others. Rwanda, for instance, is a country that is rife with the presence of such an irretrievable deficiency. Rwanda, indeed, has shown a startling economic growth and become an emergent leader country in Central Africa. The World Bank has recently eulogized Rwanda’s recent remarkable development success, which it

Read More
924 Words | 4 Pages

Colonialism /kəˈlōnēəˌlizəm/ is the policy or practicing of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically. Colonization dehumanizes both the colonized and colonizer and becomes a means of “civilizing” the colonized as a justification for colonization. Former Pan-Africanist, W.E.B. Du Bois and Walter Rodney are important figures to analyze when discussing colonialism. Even though both men had different perspectives of colonialism, their ideas work hand and hand. Rodney looked at colonialism from an economic standpoint and believed colonialization made African persons invisible, and stripped them of civilization which eventually cause the underdevelopment that exist

Read More
208 Words | 1 Pages

In the race of European imperialism, European countries dominated innocent African colonies. The driving force behind this? Africa’s bountiful resources. Before Africa’s colonization, the European presence in Africa was extremely limited, mainly due to lack of exploration and diseases (Background Essay). However, this changed as European prominence became largely influential through the discovery of Africa’s resource rich lands.

Read More
548 Words | 3 Pages

They had problems linking ancient cities with those in the modern world. However, there was another beautiful city activist while embracing Sargent’s views took them a few steps further, Charles

Read More
859 Words | 4 Pages

Chapter 2 begins with the Heritage of Colonialism. This is an important aspect for the remainder of the book. Without understanding where African politics started and how it related to the world, one would not be able to appreciate the growth the nation has had. The author of this chapter, Crawford Young begins to explain European

Read More
565 Words | 3 Pages

So Europe invaded Africa, took possession of Africa, and divided Africa into colonies of Europe. The period of invasion, lasting some twenty years, was more or less completed by 1900. There followed a longer period, between sixty and ninety years, of direct European rule, called colonial rule. This was a time of profound upheaval for all of Africa’s peoples. It brought irreversible changes” (4).

Read More
1119 Words | 5 Pages

Africa has been a region that has been through countless hardships, from the exploitation of slavery to the apartheid policy that was implemented by the Europeans. Today the Continent of Africa is in a predicament; some countries are democratic while others are full-fledged autocracies. Ever since the fall of the Soviet Union during World War II, and the release of Nelson Mandela from jail, democracy has been on the rise in Africa. However some countries within Africa that have tried to take the step towards democratization have been pulled back into the clutches of authoritarianism through the hands of a president.

Read More
571 Words | 3 Pages

In History of Africa, Shillington focuses on many aspects of African culture and factors that made Africa to be the continent that it is today. Chapter 5 primarily focuses on the Northern region of Africa and how empires took over and spread their ideology technology, and culture all through out the region. Even today some remnants of the Roman and Greek empire live on to this day (Shillington, 69.) Despite many people getting the impression that Northern Africa is only influenced by Arabic and Islam, these empires and their conquests are best understood through topics like intricate trading routes, farming, and the spread of religion. Shillington provides an in depth analysis of how many of these conquests affected Northern Africa centuries ago and today.

Read More
1921 Words | 8 Pages

This is based on the liberal capitalistic notion of public and private property. Land in Africa become private property of many European powers which enabled them to exploit many African countries economically. He furthers his argument and states that neo liberalism is closely associated with neo colonialism because western countries have imposed their culture, norms and values through institutions such as the IMF and World bank (chis, 1023: 2016). An example of this would be the conditions given to African countries before they can receive loans. Worse liberalism has lead to Global South countries adopting a dependency syndrome in which they become reliant on western

Read More
1408 Words | 6 Pages

Impact of Colonization on the Political Structure of Angola By Harlan Stevens The Portuguese began colonizing Angola in 1575 and the people of Angola were unable to regain their independence for four centuries. During this time, Angola’s lifestyle and political structure was changed dramatically. Even after the Portuguese left Angola, the Portugueses impact continued to shape Angola. Due to the political chaos that ensued after the Portuguese left and gave up their claim on Angola, the nation was convulsed by a violent civil war.

Read More
1064 Words | 5 Pages

An often glossed over and prettily wrapped part of history can be found when examining the colonial era. This was a time of imperial racing to see who could develop the most civilizations and obtain the most land worldwide. What is ignored though is the truth of what colonialism did to the nations and the reality of its impacts on the world as a whole. Colonialism is responsible for the unequal biases toward race, gender, social class, among and within nations. Further, colonialism set into motion exploitation of nations of the global south for the benefit of nations of the global north, and even upon decolonization, with the optimistic idea of independence, imperial powers set up a system to where the decolonized nations were still dependent on them and continued the abuse of the global south nations and their resources for the economic gain, and that system sticks with us to this day.

Read More

More about Summary Of Basil Davidson's The Legacy

Related Topics

Open Document