y involved, but the bulk of the continent--Equatorial
Africa--remained almost entirely untouched. After 1870 the pattern was
dramatically altered as British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German and
Italian forces moved inland, staking out their claims.

Division of Africa among the great powers reached its culmination when
this process was completed, about 1910, when the whole vast continent of
Africa excepting Ethiopia, Egypt and South Africa had been parcelled out
among the rival European empires. In terms of geography and population,
Africa was still African. Politically it was pre-empted, occupied,
dominated and exploited by European empire builders, who used the over,
all trade name of western civilization.

Excessive costs of empire building, including the disastrous losses of
military struggle from 1914 to 1945, impoverished and weakened the
European overlords to such an extent that they could no longer maintain
their footholds in Africa. At the same time African minorities in
various parts of the continent launched independence movements under the
slogan of self-determination, drove out the European occupiers,
organized political states and declared that Africa must be governed by
and for Africans.

Much of Africa, at the time, was organized along tribal lines, which cut
across the boundaries drawn by the European imperialists between their
colonial territories. The resulting chaos temporarily removed Africa
from any meaningful role in the planet-wide contest for pelf and power.
Africans are politically sovereign. Economically and culturally they
remain dependent on their former European masters.

Politically, western civilization is in a state of flux. Its European
homeland is basically divided by potent fears, ambitions, feuds and
conflicts, and separated geographically from North America and Asia.
Despite several attempts to unify the continent politically, Europe was
disrupted, fragmented and weakened by two general wars in a single
generation. The European empires were politically and economically upset
by widespread colonial revolt in Asia and Africa. Spectacular
achievements of socialism-communism, particularly in East Europe and
Asia, added to the previous fragmentation a new line of division between
capitalist West Europe and socialist East Europe. This process of
fragmentation is giving separatist forces ascendancy over the forces of
integration and unification.

In Roman and Egyptian civilization