—Robin Law, “Wheel Transportation in Precolonial West Africa,” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 50, no. 3 (1980), p. 257
00:00 Presentation
1:34 What's so special about wheels, anyway?
6:02 Why didn't Europe adopt the camel?
8:02 a.m. Trypanosomiasis and tsetse fly
9:32 a.m. Arid zones of eastern and southern Africa without tsetse flies
10:30 a.m. Call to Africa specialists
11:08 Cigarettes and pennies
FOOTNOTES
[1] KN Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilization in the Indian Ocean: An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 110
[2] WT Jackman, The Development of Transport in Modern England, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1916), vol. 1, p. 22
Edward Whiting Fox, History in Geographic Perspective: The Other France (New York: Norton, 1971), p. 34
William H. McNeill, “Eccentricity of Wheels or Eurasian Transportation in Historical Perspective,” American Historical Review, 92, no. 5 (December 1987), p. 1111-13
For a somewhat contrasting view (still showing that transport by water is cheaper than by land), see James Masschaele, “Transport Costs in Medieval England,” in The Economic History Review, 46, no. 2 (May 1993), p. 266-79
[3] Jackman, The Development of Transport in Modern England, pp. 8-9
[4] Jackman, The Development of Transport in Modern England, p. 5
McNeill, “The Eccentricity of Wheels,” p. 1111
[5] McNeill, “The Eccentricity of Wheels,” pp. 1123-25
Yi-Rong Ann Hsu, Clifton W. Pannell, and James O. Wheeler, “The Development and Structure of Transportation Networks in Taiwan: 1600-1972,” in China's Island Frontier: Studies in the Historical Geography of Taiwan, ed. Ronald G. Knapp (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1980), p. 165
Heather Sutherland, “Geography as destiny? The Role of Water in Southeast Asian History,” in A World of Water: Rain, Rivers, and Seas in Southeast Asian Histories, ed. Peter Boomgaard, Verhandelingen van Het Koninklijk Instituut Voor Taal-, Land- En Volkenkunde 240 (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2007), pp.
For an overview of maritime trade in this region, see Ng Chin-keong, Boundaries and Beyond: China's Maritime Southeast in Late Imperial Times (Singapore: NUS Press, 2017), chapter 1.
[6] Richard W. Bulliet, The Camel and the Wheel (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975), pp. 22-25
AG Hopkins, An Economic History of West Africa (New York: Columbia University Press, 1973), p. 72
[7] Hopkins, An Economic History of West Africa, pp. 71-75
Robin Law, “Wheel Transportation in Precolonial West Africa,” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 50, no. 3 (1980), pp. 257-58
[8] TAM Nash, Africa's Bane: The Tsetse Fly (London: Collins, 1969)
Hopkins, An Economic History of West Africa, pp. 71-75
Ralph A. Austen and Daniel Headrick, “The Role of Technology in the African Past,” African Studies Review, 26, no. 3/4 (September 1983), pp.170-171
Marcella Alsan, “The Effect of the Tsetse Fly on African Development,” American Economic Review, 105, no. 1 (January 2015), pp. 382-410 (passim)
See also Law, “Wheel Transport in Precolonial West Africa,” p. 253
[9] Paul Starkey, “A Global View of Animal Power Highlighting Some Key Issues in Eastern and Southern Africa,” in Improving Animal Power Technology: Proceedings of the First Animal Power Network Workshop for Eastern and Southern Africa Australe (ATNESA) (Wageningen, Netherlands: Technical Center for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), 1994), p. 74
MINIATURE CREDITS
Composite satellite image of Africa by NASA, public domain
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Africa_(satellite_image).jpg
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