Mansa Musa and Islam in Africa: Crash Course World History #16-ghanatoday.net

Why is African history not taught in schools in the U.S?

– This Post was written by Bion Michael Shelden, Educator for 30+ years

Well, first of all, it is taught, but it gets very minimal coverage. So what I’m really answering here is , why does Africa get short shrift in history classes in the United States? Two major reasons come to mind:

The primary reason is the Eurocentric nature—more specifically, the Anglocentric nature—of American culture, including our educational system. I taught World History for many years, and while our textbooks always included material on Africa, it was very limited. For example, one book we used had a single chapter that covered everything on Africa from the First Century B.C.E up until the Berlin Conference in the 19th Century A.D. The same book had two complete chapters on Ancient Greece. That's quite typical.

But Eurocentrism is not the only factor. A second and almost equally important reason that Africa gets shortchanged in US classrooms is that most pre-colonial African cultures had no formal writing systems, with many relying on oral history. Oral history can actually be quite informative, but its obvious weakness is that it is vulnerable to the deaths of the persons trained to relay said history. So most of the history of Africa, as told by Africans, has been lost; it can only be recollected through a combination of archeology and of third party accounts—such as Arab traders plying the coast of East Africa. (One notable exception to this is the history of Northern and Western Africa following the expansion of Islam into the region, due to the arrival of Arabic.) So it's hard to include much African history in our books if most of it is unknown.

You should also note that it is not just Africa that gets short changed in American books on world history. In my experience, the same is true of the pre-Colombian Americas. In fact, if anything, South America is even more ignored by our history books—in many books the only mention of South America in the past 500 years is a single section on the efforts of Simon Bolivar to expel the Spanish. And while China gets some coverage, pre-Commodore Perry Japan is often ignored, and Eastern Europe gets next to no coverage. There's just so much time in the year, and just so many pages to fit into a book, so something is going to get left out.

Mansa musa was incredibly rich, but was definitely not the richest person ever. Julius and Augustus caesar, possibly Genghis khan and king Solomon were wealthier. Also I don't think it's fair to let out that mansa musa was also one of the biggest slavers of that time. Making and selling slaves and employing them in his giant gold mines. That being said taking in the spirit of the time he was a wealthy leader but not necessarily a good one since he spent most of his time travelling instead of staying at home and helping his people

I dont care about islam

how did trans-Saharan trade impact africa

Mansa Musa, flexin' since 1324

Dr FRANCES CRESS WESLING …..research know truth …know thyself …..Jane Elliott Caucasian women tells truth about her race…….always a hidden agenda by Europeans. It’s intentional not to teach AFRICANS in America about KINGS & QUEENS way before caucasians existed on Earth (mutated Neanderthals)

Awesome! Awesome! Awesome!

I have to put on a bunch of short comments because YouTube won’t let me put down one long one.

do you watch this cause its you homework or just for fun

5:39 Stan Winston?

Can you slow down your talking?

weHPIEUWGH :(((((

I was gonna like this vid but then he said he likes pineapple on pizza

Swahili language actually originated from intermarriage between coastal Bantus and Arab traders

My head hurts

In hindi

Well its May so I said it to late

2:24 waldo? lol

Simply awesome

Sorry, but I want to dislike the video because you said you liked pineapple pizza.