Re: Not really - Edit 1
Before modification by Camilla at 08/04/2010 02:55:58 PM
What if black pepper had been an indigenous plant in Europe and/or the Middle East? Not only does that impact a small but important part of medieval trade - the most long-distance one - but it also is of crucial importance to the European discovery journeys of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, and hence to the entire concept of colonialism.
Or what if potatoes or tobacco had not been imported from South America.
Tobacco was from North America/the Caribbean, or at least the specific species that are smoked by most people
Of course, if tobacco was not a cash crop, my family would never have been wealthy in the early 19th century (nor would they have lost most everything between the Panic of 1837 and the Civil War
)Yesyes. Details. I come from Norway. Everywhere that is warm enough for tobacco growing is per definition SOUTH.
And, of course, part of the scenario would have to be that it were never grown by European immigrants either.
It's okay. I always think "up there" for any region where snow lies on the ground more than a handful of days a year, if that much.
And then there's that scenario if Songhai had not been weakened by invasions from the Sahara...
Now you are back on political history.
I consider the social vacuum created by the collapse of a strong polity in the Sahel to be responsible in part for the atrocity known as the transatlantic slave trade. The social upheaval that was unleashed is something that certainly affects hundreds of millions directly and almost as many indirectly today.
That being said, some of my vocabulary would have been different if this hadn't taken place.
But that is the case with most of the political events mentioned in this thread. The interest lies in the social ramifications. The collapse of a major African kingdom is definitely a political event.