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History and Critical Analysis

The Oceanic Imperative: Why Geography Is the Initial and Boundary Condition of History

·2971 words·14 mins
This article argues that geography is both the initial and boundary condition of history—and that open-ocean access, not landmass or population, is the necessary foundation of global empire. It traces the Ottoman Empire’s fatal confinement to a closed Mediterranean cul-de-sac, contrasts its vast size with the tiny but ocean-facing Atlantic powers that carved up the world, and presents the United States as the ultimate geographic synthesis: a continental tellurocracy protected by two oceanic moats, free to project power anywhere on the planet.

Africa Lost Sovereignty – Part 5: The Prophet, the Preacher, and the Press

The idea had animated the rebellion—that Africans of different languages and chiefdoms could unite against a common oppressor—did not die with its prophet. It seeped into the soil of Tanganyikan politics and lay dormant for a generation, until it re-emerged in the mass nationalism of the 1950s.

Africa Lost Sovereignty – Part 4: The Country That Never Existed

When the Bakongo people first learned that they had been divided, it was not through an official proclamation or a treaty ceremony. A hunter following a familiar trail through the forest might encounter a new flagpole, a wooden post painted in the colours of Portugal, or France, or Leopold’s Congo Free State.

Africa Lost Sovereignty – Part 2: The Maxim Gun and the Tax Collector

Much of the conquest was outsourced to limited-liability companies whose directors sat in boardrooms in the City of London, the Bourse, and the Brussels Bourse. These companies raised their own armies, signed their own treaties, collected their own taxes, and dispensed their own justice.