Europe’s direct colonial tutelage neither began nor ended everywhere in Africa at the same time, but can be said to have roughly lasted from 1885 until the early 1960s. Outside of South Africa, it was not until after World War II, however, that infrastructure investments of any scale were finally undertaken. The few railways that were built were mostly small-gauge roads and focused on moving untransformed minerals from mine to port. One searches in vain for rail lines or highways connecting the colonies to one another. Seen in the light of the short duration and tenuous nature of European
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