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Come on. Where did I say you were being defensive? I pointed out that you keep accusing me of being defensive, something I cannot dispute without sounding defensive, in light of how you’ve been replying: And I did not claim you were making some grander statement: If you need clarification...

How can I respond to accusations that I'm being defensive and spreading misinformation without appearing defensive to you? Thank you for providing more direction for the research on this topic. In particular, the citations from the 70s, which is right around when Sawadogo was starting off as a...

I appreciate that you do seem to be quite knowledgable on this topic, and I also appreciate that you provided some more citations. I don't appreciate being told I'm spreading mis-information, given my own skepticism, expressed in my initial post: I went into this discussion totally willing to...

Can you provide a citation to counter the citations that I used? I've got videos of farmers from the Sahel claiming that until recently, manure was not used in zai pits. The most famous is a man named Yacouba Sawadogo, who had a documentary made about him, and has been recognized internationally...

I would like to clarify that I never said the technique itself was new, and I stated that my understanding was that it was traditional, going back an arbitrarily long time into the past. I said the various refinements to it promoted in the sources I link were new - and even that claim I found...

I said I had done some searching on the topic, which is what you were advising me to do, I did not say I was well read. You said “do some google searches,” which is exactly what I had done. I also specifically stated my skepticism about the claims made in those sources in my opening post. So...

These were not assumptions, these were claims specifically made by present day farmers in the Sahel, as represented in the various links I provided. Every video and paper I read on the topic says that modern farmers in the Sahel have refined older practices. That being said, whether or not they...

I never said they were.

I really get the impression you’re responding to some grander point that I’m not making.

I have done some searching on the topic, and I completely take for granted that these techniques date back very far. However, they do not seem to have incorporated the various innovations mentioned in my post until our lifetimes, for whatever reason. As for the landscape, any areas of the Sahel...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaï https://www.zef.de/fileadmin/webfiles/downloads/zefnews/No8-9-2001-engl.pdf In the past generation, there has been a bit of a revolution in the agricultural practices in marginal Sahel lands. There is a traditional agricultural technique called Zai, which is...

Allow me to address the last point first: I'm not drawing a comparison between Rome and America on a cultural basis, where America must civilize the barbaric Latin Americans. I'm drawing a purely imperial comparison, and operating from the simple observation that Rome grew through its military...

Heh My main interest is just focusing on the most glaring difference between Rome and America’s foreign policies, vis a vis their neighboring allies. On a superficial level, NATO or the major Pacific allies might seem like the Socii, except that those alliances don’t really exist to defend the...

This will hopefully be a fairly free wheeling discussion, inspired by my thoughts in a thread in the FH subforum that was pursuing the tried and true formula of the US as the new Rome. My position boiled down to this: if America is the new Rome, it needs its own Socii. There's no reason for them...

I have another scenario, also inspired by recent events, that is similar enough that I’d rather not make another thread for it. Perhaps @rfmcdonald can chime in, I know he is somewhat knowledgeable on the topic. Suppose that the Philippines grows more economically during the 20th century, such...

This timeline features quicker technological and economic developments, and an enduring Roman Republic. Meaning that the third century will be utterly unrecognizable.

You mean the workers uprising in the steel mills of Roman Britain?

Unless someone dams the Congo and turns the rainforest into a lake. Then that might indeed be a great route for a trade route.

That overland route seems quite marginal to me. Far more likely for trade to go along the coast.

Are you looking specifically for Chinese trade with western Africa, more developed trade in Africa or what? Because I’m quite sure that Malian gold made its way to China, and I wouldn’t be at all shocked if Mansa Musa had some silk.