A Brief Political and Geographic History of Africa (Where Are the Belgian Congo, Rhodesia, and Kush?)

Book excerpt: Africa is a vibrant but all-too-often misunderstood continent. Outsiders know Africa from the evening news as a collection of countries plagued by war, famine, disease, and poverty. Few people are aware of its rich past, dynamic present, and promising future. Africans, however, look back into a yesteryear crowded with empires and kingdoms and into a tomorrow filled with economic and political potential. The difference between these two ways of seeing Africa emerges from the fact that so many of the places that once dominated its landscape have disappeared from the world’s maps. The Belgian Congo, Rhodesia, and Kush are but a few of the locations that no longer can be found on a modern globe. They were once central to the lives of millions of people, but now they are gone. They have become places lost in time.