The blog is very useful.

I second or third the recommendation that people read jared Diamond’s Guns Germs and Steel (my review) as background to understanding the relative “achievements” of world regions.

And Western Europe really was a backwater in the 10th century, compared to either Song China or the “Middle East”.

Contrary to “fact #2″ above, the Maasai have had domesticated cattle for hundreds of years.
Perhaps this achievement is attributable to wasting less time on casual sex,
because (according to http://www.fact-index.com/m/ma/maasai.html ),
circumcision is practised on both sexes at adolescence. Ouch.

Stanford biologist M. Robert Sapolsky also has a book about adventures in Africa.  Some of his observerations match Theroux’s, though Sapolsky isn’t quite as negative.  The book is called, A Primate’s Memoir.  I recently finished this book — it’s a good read, and contains some interesting discussions of baboon behavior, as well.

Well, I think I’m the first African to pipe up. In short: one curious thing about Theroux’ feelings (according to Philip) is that it doesn’t translate well to “First World” Africans, who happen to be some of the most enterprising and educated people around.
It gives me a few hypotheses: first, part of why Africa is “broken” is that people can’t see a future bigger than what they already have while they are there. As soon as they leave, however, they are the quickest and most willing to take opportunities given to them.
A second hypothesis is that people don’t have any concept of a life that’s better. Many look around them and compare it to what they see on television or film and feel that the jump is too great.
Uh oh, my flight is leaving. Please, anyone who wants context, watch a film called “Journey Of Hope,” an independent film released a while ago. It’s about Kurds trying to get into Switzerland, but I think the concepts are fairly similar.

Recommended reading: “The Shadow of the Sun”, Kapuscinski and to understand problems of aid: “Ripples from the Zambezi”.

My personal opinion is that African poverty is due to many causes. Among them are disease, geography and culture. Its hard to run a company when 60% of your workers have malaria that can re-surface and knock them on their backs for months at a time. Similarly I think African’s aren’t selfish enough – communal living makes capital accumulation almost impossible. Your cousin’s husband is sick? You need to spring for a doctor. The little that african’s have is shared with those in need.

There is a recent interesting webcast at mitworld on development: http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/212/

Don’t worry Gary, when the celibacy and endless work hours get you down, you can always pop a prozac like the rest of the depressed Western masses.

Hmmmm… Subsistance farming… Frequent sex…

Too good to be true, I guess that I’ll stick to the endless work and pointless celibacy that civilisation offers me.

The “pure blooded Negro”? Now that’s funny. Is there a genetic marker somewhere? Never progressed beyond the common mud hut? This stuff is too funny yet people believe it, both blatant racists and people who should know better.

Jeff Veit, I trust you actually read “Dark Star Safari”?