AFRICAN DECOLONISATION MAP ANALYSIS TASK

The Cold War did not cause the end of the colonial empires, but new nations became entangled in the dispute between East and West. The Cold War and decolonization created a Three World order. The First World was the US and its liberal democratic, capitalist allies, the Second World was the USSR and its communist allies, and the new, decolonized nations formed the Third World, a problematic term that students will scrutinize.

1. In what decade did most of the African nations become independent? 2. Which colonizer had the largest empire? 3. List 5 nations that had anti-colonial revolts or wars after World War II.

Editor’s Note: Linguistic Groups are groups of people that speak the same language or languages that are similar to each other. A linguistic group map gives us some idea of the cultural and ethnic groups of people. In general, people identify with those who speak their language and often don’t want to be ruled by those who speak another language. Nationalists often want to unify all the people who speak a certain language together in a nation. Nations with many linguistic groups are very difficult to unify. Source: Linguistic Groups in Nigeria in 1979, produced by the CIA. Courtesy of Perry-Castañeda Library, University of Texas at Austin, http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/africa/nigeria_linguistic_1979. 1. How many linguistic (ethnic) groups were combined in the nation- state of Nigeria?

Source: Colonial Africa 1913 Map, with modern borders, created by Eric Gaba (Wikimedia Commons user: Sting), http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Colonial_Africa_1913_map.svg.

2. Find Nigeria on the Colonial Africa map 2. Find Nigeria on the Colonial Africa map. What imperialist held Nigeria as a colony? How do the colony borders compare to the modern national borders of Nigeria? What problems might that cause?

1. There is another way to look at world differences in the period between 1947 and 1991. It is to divide the world into the North and the South. Which of the three worlds would be in the North? Which would be in the South? 2. What were some of the differences between the North and South?

1. There is another way to look at world differences in the period between 1947 and 1991. It is to divide the world into the North and the South. Which of the three worlds would be in the North? Which would be in the South? 2. What were some of the differences between the North and South?