Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics

by Tim Marshall

The ethnic conflicts within Sudan, Somalia, Kenya, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Mali and elsewhere are evidence that the European idea of geography did not fit the reality of Africa’s demographics. There may have always been conflict: the Zulus and Xhosas had their differences long before they had ever set eyes on a European. But colonialism forced those differences to be resolved within an artificial structure – the European concept of a nation state. The modern civil wars are now partially because the colonialists told different nations that they were one nation in one state, and then after the colonialists were chased out a dominant people emerged within the state who wanted to rule it all, thus ensuring violence.

The African Problem