CHAPTER 21

GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY: A STUDY IN SYSTEMATIC CO-EVOLUTION

Okechi Dominic Azuwike, PhD

Introduction

Contrary to popular notions, Geography is not an inventory of place names, measurements and absolute values of physical and human phenomena. It is rather an effort to account for the variable character of distributions (of any phenomenon) on the earth’s surface. Geography therefore studies variability, of particularly spatial phenomena. It is not strange therefore that it would cross paths with history.

Its unarguable nexus with history is also seen in history’s preoccupation with tracking change. It would appear to be the case that spatial change; an essentially geographical fort is very much tied to temporal change which is the hallmark of history. In this chapter, this geography-history nexus is comprehensively explored to show that:

i. Geographical features are of cultural essence and the cultural productions become markers of history;

ii. Time continuum or otherwise is often expressed as spatial continuum or discontinuity;

iii. Historical moments are of geographical importance;

iv. Trajectories of history are tied to evolution of geographies;

v. Succession is as much a historical cum ecological phenomenon as it is a force in spatial change;

vi. Parallel and similarities abound between history and geography; and

vii. Nigeria’s settlement history is a walk in geography.

In quite a vivid expression of dialectical materialism, Geography expresses the fact that structures are created and destroyed regularly through processes in operation and these structures develop patterns and generate processes that build more structures in a never ending circle. Uniformitarianism is a concept that captures this situation. Rivers change and history changes in resonance; minerals change (run out) and history changes with it; climate changes and history changes with it; technology changes (industries may get footloose and migrate from the stranglehold of water environments of their earlier location and history changes with it as new areas (towns), new industrial zones develop. Technological change such as occasioned agricultural shifts from labour intensive to capital intensive orientation helped to signal the demise of ancient slavery. Hence history has tended to regiment time along the lines of key geographical events. There was the ice age, the machine age etc. Papal bull of demarcation might have become a historical relic in present global geopolitics but at its time at the beginning of the 15 century, it marked the making of geography of maritime powers (Spain and Portugal) and their dominions. Geography’s link with history is ancient, dating back to the time when earliest geographical treatises came from travel writings documented as histories. This piece will identify aspects of this relationship from those early years to the present.

Geographical Features: Cultural Essence, Markers of History

Geographical features are of cultural essence and in time these cultural products become markers of history. This is what is illustrated in this section in diverse settings and time periods.

1. Material Culture: Material culture highlights the way man’s philosophies (non material) are translated to practicalities for the advancement of his objectives. The struggle of man is almost always against the rigidities and constraints imposed by nature. Culture therefore becomes a sustainable reaction to nature considered so highly important that it has to be systematically transferred through generations to ensure continuity of human communities in some form of encoding of the nature of a social DNA. Apart from natural features such as mountains and rivers to which cultures are adjusted, anthropogenic forms such as the built environment are no less compelling geographical forms that espouse cultures in their own right. Hence Dutch wind mills are evocative of poetry as they capture the imagination of artists such as Vincent Van Gogh, Edward Wesson, Anton Pieck, Piet Mondrian and Rob Van Assen. They have also become a factor in the aesthetics of the landscape; a factor in the production of a distinct sense of place for the Dutch in their land. The Dutch windmill became a major genre in the world of landscape paintings. These windmills were first and foremost mere geographical artifacts of man’s survival against physical constraints. They have become part of the cultural history of domestic water sourcing and energy production for diverse use – one that in the present deserves the attention it is getting as part of the world’s UNESCO heritage that ought to be protected. Where dated geographical features acquire an ideographic existence, their iconographic appeal seems guaranteed and they may become the subject of protective efforts as historical properties or monuments. Their destruction will then therefore assume the nature of a cultural genocide. The Doors-of-No-Return in Goree Island, Senegal, in Badagry, Nigeria, in Cape Coast, Ghana and others in Benin, for their role in the slave market have become iconic for human misery and are now more than just doorways. China’s Great Wall is no longer a mere barrier against barbaric invaders, but a testament to Chinese ingenuity and extensive capabilities of the human spirit.

2. History in the Landfill: Modern man has created a situation in which he is virtually swamped by the waste of his own production much like Daedalus of TheGreek Legend of Icarius and Daedalus was imprisoned in the Labyrinths that were his own creation. Until lately, landfills were seen as a way out of the waste challenges. Dumpsites are currently used by much of the world. On the dumpsites modern archaeology (if we can take the liberty of widening the reach of archaeology) can piece social foibles and nuances of the existence of the modern man together. Even as a vulgar form of philately, engaging artifacts in modern waste piles can yield a chronicle of modern social history. Is the dumpsite a mere geographical happenstance devoid of historical materials then or is it also a place to meet history? In the dumpsite the two subjects of geography and history meet.

3. Symbolic Places: In Mythical Geography, symbolic places mark history and create a fusion between geography and history. Auschwitz, Hiroshima, Pearl Harbour, Goree Island, Badagry, Abagana, Wailing Wall and Sambisa are all important historico-geographical spaces. Places of memory are constructed and contested. There, ‘symbolic imaginings of the past interweave with the materialities of the present’. The Wailing Wall, the twin towers; Ground zero, and Pearl Harbour are examples. Places carry loads of history. While places are geographical, the feelings associated with them are tied to their histories.

4. Geographical Phenomena in Making of History: There is a strict involvement of geographical phenomena in the making of history. History has it that first use of irrigation in Tigris and Euphrates Valleys and in the Nile Valley was before 2000BC; Dravidians established first city communities in Indus Valley before 2000BC; Ancient China, before 2000BC, had established a thriving civilization in Yellow River; in the Shang Dynasty around 1600BC, Yellow River Civilization had expanded to territories North and South of the Yellow River; and Chou Dynasty, around 700BC established their rule as far as the Yangtze River. Why is there this profuse mention of geographical phenomena (of Valleys and Rivers) in production of history?

Taking a look at the expression, ‘as far as the Yangtze River’, one can decipher that a river is major impedance on cultural diffusion and is therefore effective in marking off the limits of a culture area. Culture spreads out in space from a geographical core area and tends to be contained in all directions by the existence of some physical obstacle that inhibits further interaction. Hence Nigeria’s three broad culture areas North, East and West are clearly defined by the Niger/Benue Rivers system. Geographical boundaries, understandably, even those that define villages are marked by physical barriers such as mountains, valleys, rivers and lakes. Whether it is Hannibal and his men trying to scale the Alps exploiting a pass or Jihadists from the North trying to overcome the treacherous environment of the Benue Valley on a southward campaign, physical features have shaped the course of history through checking interaction and confining cultural expressions to specific locales.

Time Continuum as Spatial Continuum

Where time acts on a mosaic of cultural spaces, it might produce a uniformity coalescing diverse geographies into a singular cultural unit. This is the success that has been arrived at by civilizations that have achieved a cultural melting pot such as the United States of America. This is also the situation countries grappling with challenges of diversity such as Nigeria claim to be aiming at. It is in modern literature referred to as integration and in social studies and civics, studied under the term Nation-Building. The term stands for a social form of alchemy in which by association diverse nations unlearn or drop much of their debilitating differences and embrace and in fact highlight commonalities to the extent that they are able to fashion a nation out of several nations and ‘live happily ever after’. Time and space convergence manifests in diverse ways.

a. Nation Building and Integration

A temporal continuum of integration (for nation-building) finds expression in a continuum of spaces of integration. Integration which has historical markers and can be calibrated along the lines of several milestones on a timeline finds expression in a continuum of spaces in integration. Beyond being historical, it finds physical expression in the spatial configuration of neighbourhoods, schools, markets, political processes etc. African people have witnessed forms of integration forced upon them by European fiat as mere historical events without care that it produces geographical consequences. Hence irredentism has become the lot of modern African peoples. For Nigeria, while the elements that make up the state did not get into destructive bickering that could distract them before 1914, the amalgamation of that year changed the geography of power and precipitated agitations ever since. Historical pronouncements truly bear geographical consequences.

b. Modernity

Modernity is a historical milestone involving ethos and knowledge systems that evolved in 17 century Europe. It however finds spatial expression in the large city seen as an expression of 19/20 century modernity or in bringing cities under the control of modern states. Hence the ‘modern’ is both a historical phenomenon as well as a geographical one in literature, architecture, urban design, fashion etc. The modern urban structure for instance climaxes as megacities with multiple Central Business Districts never seen in history.

c. Spatial Decision Making

History is abused or created in the way spatial decisions are taken. For instance on district maps, credit dispensing agencies may redline entire areas deemed to be poor and a credit risk, marking them out for credit denial. Where this happens, such areas are locked into a vicious circle. Self-fulfilling prophecies reinforce stereotypes. There is an argument that geographies are constructed through assessments, by investment houses and bankers, of emerging markets and their potential before they are engaged.

Linear extrapolations counting on historical data are all too common in administration. It proves critical to development of geographical forms and in fact spatial ascendency or stagnation of regions. It is referred to as path-dependency (outcome depends on history). The only challenge to this paradigm comes from Radical Geography which analyses and factors processes by which inequalities are produced and maintained.

d. City Structure and Morphology

City morphology is defined in historical moments:

Pre-colonial - primarily concentric urban form, where the entire city is anchored on one central hub, the Central Business District (CBD) with landuse concentrically arranged from that core to the peripheries.

Colonial: Emergent transport systems impose on the city a disorientation of what would have remained entirely concentric form, creating sectors or wedge shaped landuse typologies.

Post-Colonial: Emergence of diverse growth poles or CBDs specializing on diverse themes generally referred to as multiple nuclei form.

Development of a city structure is evidently organic and time bound in historical leaps.

The city also goes through cycle of decline and rejuvenation in historical time with a cycle of growth, decay, near-death experience and rejuvenation. The city in this way may be looked at as a geographical realization of history or history rendered in spatial terms. Time and space inexorably converge in diverse ways in producing the livingspace and all its trappings.

Historical Moments are of Geographical Importance

Every passing day history is made – Angela Markel opening Germany to waves of refugees; Donald Trump deciding on walling off the United States from Mexican migrants; the pulling down of the Berlin Wall; 19 century partitioning of Africa by European powers etc. These have reverberations that border on the geographical. The dust bowl was as much a geographical phenomenon relating to drought and dust storms as it was a historical moment in the ecological life of the United States’ Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma of the 1930s. It was an appendage to the preceding Great Depression that pushed agriculture into overdrive producing ecological nightmare. In other ways historical moments prove geographical points. A number of them will further illustrate.

a. Time periods as distinct geographical identities: There was the year 1965; the decade 1970 to 1980; and the century 1800 to 1900. These periods represent milestones in history. They represent discontinuities – a break from what preceded and a distinction from what followed. As they represent individual historical milestones, they also represent distinct geographical identities. They represent a certain turnout of a conspiracy of geographical elements in producing a distinct social and physical setting. Hence, where M.J.C. Echeruo identifies a Victorian Lagos, he engages a point in historical time, a range of historical time as well as a spatial product – Lagos rendered in all its Victorian glory or vainglory. The reference is to a sense of place.

b. History in the Creation of Geography: Depopulation of a place from historical events of raiding, diseases or physical constraints may lead to spatial stigmatization and a vicious circle of avoidance leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy of underdevelopment. Hence extant configurations of settlements and populations conform to prototypes set in history. A major development challenge is therefore usually about overcoming the stigma in public consciousness about an area’s ugly past. At times great investments are involved. Muammar Gaddafi had to create the Great Man Made River to reconfigure the settlement pattern that had favoured the Mediterranean Coast against vast swaths of unlocked Libyan arid territories. Nigeria’s Middle Belt, heavily raided by slave dealers and punished by diseases did not get this kind of a makeover and has largely remained under-populated and underdeveloped.

c. Climate History: Events such as climatic cooling or warming trends readily become historical milestones for a definition of epochs. Hence there was the Little Ice Age. Ice Ages, 150 million years apart have duration in tens of millions of years. Little climate optimum – c AD 750-1200 was a period when Europe and North America were much warmer. In the Little Ice Age, between AD 1550 and 1850, temperatures were globally lower than at present. Interestingly most other geographies are derived from climate as physical and social systems are largely climate-dependent. What people wear, how they farm, their housing architecture and other attributes are all climate responses. Climate history derivatives such as fashion history are therefore reflective of a changing geography.

Trajectories of History – Evolution of Geographies

History is in the business of spawning new geographies as the following show.

a. New Geographies are produced by the Convergence of Histories. There are examples that can be found in the North American landscape of the United States on historical production of geographies. Here, there is an agglomeration of histories as diverse peoples from diverse backgrounds are brought into one cultural space. The implication is a crossing of paths and complexity of the emergent histories – history losing its simplistic foundations. A person like Madeline Albright, former American Secretary of State and her people finding integration in the United States from the backgrounds of their Czech nationality bring into an otherwise simple history of national life, added historical complexity. This makes the history of the people of the United States one of the most complex national histories. The making of Geography is the making of history. The scramble for Africa, for instance, changed the political geography of States and waxed new histories of irredentism, nationalism, conflicts and ethnic strife.

b. History and Geography in Co-operation: History strives to solve puzzles such as Ghengis Khan’s sudden withdrawal from imperialist campaign against Hungary and indeed Europe, Sparta’s inclination to a military state and Athens’ sophisticated Elitism. Geography is often mobilized in this effort with particular reference to Behaviourial Geography. The subject engages cultural cum psychological interpretations of space that may promote or suspend the usual human relation to space, distance and place part of which subject has been covered under the term proxemics by the anthropologist Edward T. Hall. Modern discourse emphasizes human ecology. Did formal colonization end as a result of rise of multinational corporations that could rival state powers? Did technology hasten the abolition of slavery? Did industrial revolution change social organization? Answers will always factor geographical elements.

c. History and Geography in Correlation: History is almost always in embrace of the familiar much like spatial conditioning of humans and animals for ‘the road well travelled’. A sense of dejavu and comfort therefrom pervades both subjects. Both subjects are in the business of cognitive dissonance – the theory that individuals strive to minimize cognitive discomfort through fostering behaviourial consistency. In both subjects any development that detracts from the well known stereotypes are marked out as special interest.

Also, geography in the era of full manifestation of state territorial powers is distinct from Geography in the historical era of de-territorialization. Non-state actors are in the present serious agenda setters and some corporations acting within states are financially stronger than those states. It is an invitation to change the course of documenting history from state-based, state-focused perspectives to stateless narratives. History in the era of statelessness is to an extent a new historical paradigm – history under a decayed, decaying geography; or history under spatial decomposition. It cannot be the same old history. History has to be reinvented in a de-territorialized global arena.

d. Construction of Geography from History: Geography has often been articulated from disparate histories. Was John Snow’s early forays in epidemiology, tracking cholera cases as they occurred and affixing them to their addresses on a map to find spatial patterns, medical geography or history keeping? His identified geographical pattern of affliction around a river traced cholera to water when germ theory of disease had yet to take root. In any other way, it can be argued that John Snow waxed together pieces of histories to solve the riddle of origin of cholera. Doctors keep keeping medical histories to this day. Converting their medical histories to spatial format or from spatial form in several layers of map overlays (imageries) to longitudinal histories are the stuff of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and are increasingly deployed. Desertification for instance can be tracked by taking imageries of one particular vegetated area at various time periods and drawing comparisons. Historical changes in size of Lake Chad, Population of Abuja, housing market growth or decline in Port Harcourt can be tracked in this way.

e. Nationalism in the Midst of Globalism: There is a new found nationalistic fervor in this age of globalism. More nations wish to play at the global arena in the colours of their long forgotten nationalistic expressions swamped by modern states. By the reinvention of the local, the tribal and the ethnic, history is being reinvented as global diminution of the significance of boundaries increasingly lead to the erosion of distinct identities. More impetus has therefore materialized for the protection of these identities. There is an awakening on language protection with particular reference to endangered languages and a cultural revolution remaking obsolete cultures.

f. Expanding History as Expanding Geography: Expanding history is tied to expanding geography. With journeys of discovery opening up new lands and leading to discovery of the New World, interactions have grown. With the new linkages, new relationships are formed and new events develop to shape history. Adiele Afigbo’s conceptualization of the world of the Igbo was one of expanding array of concentric rings with the Igbo at the centre. There is elasticity to such a world in resonance to the geographical range of the Igbo person’s experience field. There was a time history in Igboland was about relationship with the next contiguous community. Then the Ezza warriors of today’s Ebonyi had only the Izzi warriors to contend with in the time leading up to what has been described as Pax Brittanica. The experiential field has expanded to far removed lands heard of only in passing with the most cursory of attention – the period of akuko iduu n’oba, interpreted as the Edo and their Obas. It is remarkable that there was a time possibility of engaging the Edo was considered by the Igbo, too remote and outlandish.

A number of developments have followed expansions and outreaches. Food history following changing geography of movements of Africans to Europe and the Americas has changed a great deal. Along the same line of massive movements, return of liberated slaves set the tone for a new geography of demographics in Africa waxing new histories of Afro-American interactions.

g. Shrinking Geography as Shrinking History: Shrinking world of geography implies shrinking latitude of history and historiography. Imperial world required that the history of vassal states mixed up with those of imperial powers. A more liberated world without geographic concentration of powers implies a more fragmented history – history offered at a less than global template. European Union being the realization of supra-nationalism implies the creation of a Pan European holistic history. Dismantling it to recover individual states will also entail emergence of particularistic histories where this was not the case. Trajectories of history are indeed tied to evolution of geographies.

Succession – A Historical Cum Spatial Phenomenon

Succession observed in diverse forms of change is as much a historical phenomenon as it is a spatial change phenomenon. Succession is noticed in landscapes and the emergence of biogeographical biomes. It defines historical epochs. Society disarticulated and analyzed becomes layers of epochs of experiences and the surviving remnants of each era become a component of the realized complexity. Present distributions betray past experiences. A look at human ecology and the histories they precipitate - what the Chicago School of Sociology realizes through social areas analysis is instructive here. In Western countries, the LGBT movement and their spatial enclaves spoke of a history of rejection and seclusion. The later day history of their acceptance and integration into mainstream society came with spatial redistribution that saw an end to enclave settlement orientation and their assimilation into the spatial motif. The same ecological orientation goes for black populations in the United States. Their history of racial acceptance has tended to agree with a more footloose settlement not essentially tied to the old black settlement strongholds but characterized by forays into new areas some of which were purely white spaces. Hence, blockbusting has become (for ethnocentric whites) a way of stimulating white departure from social areas under the threat of a possible black takeover of such space. Succession is historical as well as geographical.

Parallels and Similarities

A lot is shared between the disciplines of Geography and History. These include:

a. Conflict: History is conflicted. It is so conflicted that it dares not introduce itself in the definite article, ‘The’ as in, for instance, ‘The History of the Latin American Slave Economy’. History authors, aware of diverse vistas dare not arrogate such magisterial authority to themselves. It is always ‘A history of…’, indicating accommodation of diversity of perspectives. Geography is equally conflicted on the meaning of place and or in fact space. The true significance of Jerusalem for instance has been in contention. Governments contend that urban spaces have to maintain an ambience that panders to elite interests and sense of aesthetics. The poor insist on a place within that milieu giving rise to conflict of interests and class wars for the soul of the city in draconian development control mechanisms. Spaces are not fixed but highly dynamic. Political maps are only of fleeting integrity because of history’s unending construction and reconstruction of political power. For maps of utilities and infrastructure, the case is the same. As history is subject to diverse vistas, so does appreciation of geographical space yield to revisionism. If meaning changes in history, geographical meaning will also change.

b. Innovation Diffusion: History of innovation diffusion is to a large extent reflective of the geography of contiguity in which case nearer places receive an experience before farther places. This is for instance seen in spread of cropping innovation across a farming region. While some issues have become history in some place, they are only dawning in other places establishing particularly reinforcement or manifesting a core – periphery relationship where the periphery relives the history played out by the core. This functions at a global context as well as regional urban – hinterland context of national regional geographies. History therefore mimics wave action cascading in spatial fits and starts following principles of expansion diffusion across space.

c. Natural History and Cultural History: The natural history of the world, measured in geologic time scales, which museums such as those of Natural history pursue, is very keenly tied to cultural history of the world. Agriculture, migration, hunting, devegetation and extinctions are captured. Man’s emergence and the natural details of his present distribution follow historical epochs of his adjustments and industry. The history of nature is also the history of culture.

d. Strategic Places; Unique Histories: Halford Mackinder hypothesized about the strategic geographical significance of certain spaces reflecting a sense of history. The geographical significance is not in any way divorced from a historical significance. Geographical strategic advantages are created by the existence of historical strategic advantages.

e. Fusion of Natural and Social Worlds: Historical documentations of tragic interventions in other peoples’ lives chronicles the disruption of geographies and patterns of spatial relationships that have developed. Hence, history is a documentation not essentially of cultural icons but natural ones. In documenting social worlds, it lends credence to the natural world that produced it.

Nigeria’s Settlement History as a Walk in Geography

History of most Nigerian towns, their rise and decline, is tied to geographical designs or accidents. Some of the earliest towns were of a continental orientation following the first wave of trade and association with the Arab world. Kano developed this way from the Trans-Saharan trade by providing an exchange point on the route. Coastal towns came later with maritime outreach from Western powers. Thus Lagos, Calabar, Warri and Port Harcourt took over. Both coastal maritime effects and the continental effects declined towards the central parts of the country which ordinarily could not develop major towns at these early periods.

The next set of towns developed from colonial interventions. The colonial governments developed territories according to colonial needs for materials: cash crops and minerals. Areas replete with some of the much sought after materials developed, leveraging on dormitory functions they are also able to provide. Railway towns developed on a North-south alignment with nodal points providing interchanges that stimulate spatial growth. With too few opportunities for East-West complementarity, the rail lines retained a colonial North-south alignment that has not been undone ever since.

In some way, settlements’ emergence is determined by physical controls as humans in their rationality avoid specific areas that are not promising and gravitate towards areas of physical provisions. Most Nigerian towns have one major geographical element or the other as shown on Table 1.

Table 1: Geographical factors indicated for selected Nigerian settlements.

Settlement Geographical Factor

Zungeru Kaduna River, lowland amidst mountains Rail lines

Lokoja Confluence

Kano Nodal location

Jos

Minerals, Plateau

Ibadan

Defensive Hills

Port Harcourt Coastal location, natural harbours

Lagos Coastal location, natural harbours

Warri Access to the sea

Abuja Central location

Abeokuta

Ogun River, Lagos effect

Onitsha River Niger

Enugu Mineral deposits

Many issues of distribution and redistribution of population through forced and voluntary migrations, andsettlement development expansion or decline that are of historical appeal are products of geographical elements. The geography of Jos – its growth and decline – has been tied to the history of decline of the non renewable tin ores.

Concluding Remarks

From the foregoing, Geography and History have actually manifested a systematic co-evolution in which they are shown to be mutually reinforcing; each yielding materials and setting agenda for the development of the other. Hence there is an interdisciplinary appeal in which each can benefit from understudying the methods and curricular of the other for its own enrichment. Neglect of the interrelationship manifests too often in everyday life with particular reference to the developing countries. There is, for instance, a penchant in Governments in Nigeria for entire undocumented landscapes to be obliterated; bulldozed away in a bid to effect urban or rural upgrade or renewal. The idea is usually lost on these Governments in such circumstances that what is obliterated is the entire cultural history of such victimized spaces. Best practice demands that environments to benefit from such ‘improvements’ are fully documented and documentations, photographs and other materials emanating from these become museum artifacts. Nihilistic approaches to landscape management betray ignorance of the history-geography interface and are at best, expressions of a dominant philistine attitude of governance institutions in particularly developing countries.

Endnotes

1. R. Hartshore, Perspectives on the nature of Geography (Chicago: Published for AAG by Rand McNally, 1959) 21.

2. “Dialectical Materialism”, New World Encyclopaedia. https://www, newworldencyclopaedia.org/entry/Dialectical_materialism. Retrieved Oct. 10, 2018. It follows Hegel’s principle of the Philosophy of history that has the dimensions of thesis, antithesis and synthesis.

3. Alan M. Hay and R.J. Johnson, “The study of process in quantitative human geography”, L’Espace geographique, 1983, 12-1 pp. 69-76.

4. Matt Rosenberg, “Uniformitarianism, The present is the key to the Past”. Thought Co. https://www.thoughtco.com/whatis uniformitarian1435. Retrieved Nov. 30, 2019.

5. A concept supported by geological insights of James Hutton and W.M. Davis’ cycle of erosion – the idea that a river’s major work is the elusive achievement of a base level for its channel.

6. Anna Khomina, “The Doctrine of Discovery: On This Day 1493” 05/04/2017. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History www.gilderlehrman.org. Relying on the Doctrine of Discovery, May 4, 1493, Pope Alexander VI issued a papal bull, ‘inter Lactera’, assigning Spain (of his origin) dominion over land on the West side of the Atlantic. Portugal’s protestations earned her through the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 recovery of previous bulls issued in its favour.

7. The idea is common in the world of science that cultural elements get etched or encoded on the genetic structures (DNA). See Joshua M. Galanter et al, “Differential methylation between ethnic sub-groups reflects the effect of genetic ancestry and environmental exposures”, elife, 2017, 6 DOI:107554/elife.20532. See also, M. Kay martin Social DNA. Rethinking our Evolutionary Past’, (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books) Oct. 2018.

8. There are millions of designs of spectacular Dutch wind mill paintings available presently. Many paintings such as The Windmill of Wijk bij Duurstede date back to c.1670 and an army of artists have followed tradition painting replicas of vintage Dutch Windmill masterpieces for a hungry market.

9. Nineteen Windmills of Kinderdijk built c. 1740 were in 1997 declared UNESCO world heritage to celebrate over 700 years of Dutch water management history. The heavy tourist traffic clearly indicates the evocative power of the windmills.

10. Raphael Lemkin had in 1944 established understanding of a unique form of genocide - cultural genocide. Raphael Lemkin, “Acts Constituting a General (Transnational) Danger considered as Offences against the Law of Nations”. (J. Fusseltrans, 2000) (1933), Raphael Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, p. 91 (1944).

11. Maria Isabel Carraseo Cara Chards, “Why “The Door of No Return” Is a Must for Any Serious Traveller”, March 15, 2019. https://culturacolectiva.com/travel/houseofslavesdoorofnoreturnafrica. Whether it is Barack Obama in Senegal in June 2013 or Melania Trunp in Ghana in October 2018, visits to Doors of No Return on the West Africa coast highlight reality of institutional inhumanity even beyond slavery.

12. With a history of about 2700 years, the wall stretching about 21,196km from east to west of China was in 1987 declared a UNESCO World Heritage.

13. According to the Greek Legend, Daedalus was imprisoned in his Labyrinth by King Minos and had to develop wings attached to the body with wax for his son Icarus and himself to beat their escape. Icarus was to go to his death for being too ambitious in soaring too close to the Sun oblivious of his vulnerable waxy wings.

14. Landfills have been discredited for their extensive application of land in unsustainable waste storage. Much of what went into landfills are increasingly recycled or reused.

15. Society for American Archaeology had defined Archaeology in a broader, more inclusive manner as the study of the ancient and recent human past through material remains, a clearly instructive departure from the preoccupation with the ancient in most definitions. See society for American Archaeology “About Archaeology” Nov. 24, 2018, https://www.saa.org/aaboutarchaeology/whatisarchaeology.

16. R. Rose-Redwood and M. Azaryahu, “Collective Memory and the politics of urban space: An introduction”, Geojournal, Vol. 73, No.3, 2008 pp. 161-164.

17. It highlighted the deployment of memories to create identities for groups within the context of contemporary information overload.

18. From Melville J. Herskovits’ 1930 article in the Journal of the International African Institute ‘The culture areas of Africa and that of C. Wissler of 1922 before it, to more recent contributions such as from J.L. Newman, the idea of cultural delimitation of each geographical region has secured validation.

19. Philip Ball, “The truth about Hannibal’s route across the Alps”. The Guardian, 3 April 2016. Retrieved 6 Aug. 2018. https://www.theguardian.com>apr.

20. David E. Kromm, “Irredentism in Africa: The Somali-Kenya Boundary Dispute”, Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science (1903) Aut 1967, 70:3, 359-365.

21. P. Claval, “The nature of cities and the Analysis of their cultural problems”. Tijdschrift, 2007, 98:2.

22. Rhee, cited in Susan Mayhew, A Dictionary of Geography, (Oxford University Press, 2015) 331.

23. In 2015 Germanys’ Angela Merkel took in about a million refugees in a surprising move that rattled her political base.

24. A major promise of Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign was the walling off of the about 3000km length southern border of the United States.

25. The Berlin wall that was both a physical and ideological barrier separating East Germany and West Berlin was brought down in 1989 following 28 years of distorting or rather creating geography. The wall at about 44km was of maximum security inhibiting any form of interaction.

26. German Chancellor Bismark had called for Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 to work out an amicable formalization of European countries’ claims over colonial lands of Africa and by 1914, 90 percent of Africa had been divided between seven European countries in gross disregard for existing boundaries.

27. M.J. Echeruo, Victorian Lagos: Aspects of Nineteenth Century Lagos Life. (Ibadan: Macmillan, 1977) 119.

28. It harps on European Civilization and its Role in the Life of the 19 Century Native in Lagos.

29. From the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer system water is pumped through 2820km of underground pipes from 1300 wells of mostly 500m depth to daily supply 6,500,000m of fresh water across a distance of up to 1,600km to the cities of Tripoli Benghazi and Sirte.

30. Mindless partitioning of Africa, not along existential divides but along the lines of administrative convenience of European powers alienated brothers in emergent state formation. State failure and conflict is driven by tribal loyalty of a trans-boundary nature.

31. Jason Thomson, “Did weather defeat the Mongol Empire”, C.S. Monitor, May 27, 2016.

32. C S Monitor reported the research of Morris Rossabi on Climate issues in Hungary that might have led to the behaviour change. Note: sudden withdrawal of the Mongol hordes from Hungary in 1242 following their blistering advance through Eastern Europe appears inexplicable.

33. Tristan Erwin, “Sparta and Athens: A Tale of Two City – States”. 4 Sept. 2019 https://medium.com/@tristanerwin/spartaandathensataleoftwocitystates-56267a8836d. Retrieved 5 Oct. 2019.

34. Edward T. Hall, The Hidden Dimension (New York: Double Day, 1966) 101.

35. Farida Lakhamy, “How important are Non-State Actors”, Pakistan Horizon, 2006, 59:3, 37-46.

36. Parag Khanna, “These 25 companies are more powerful than many countries”, 15 March, 2016. https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/03/15.

37. The 25 companies and their annual revenues include Walmart, $486b; Exxon Mobil, $269b; Royal Dutchshell, $265b; Apple, $234b; Glencore, $221b; Samsung, $163b; Amazon, $107b; Microsoft, $94b; Nestle, $93b; Alphabet, $75b; Uber, $62.5b; Huawei, $60b; Vodafone, $60b; Anheuser-Busch Inbev, $47b; Maersk, $40b; Goldman Sachs, $34b; Halliburton, $33b; Accenture, $31b; McDonalds, $25b; Emirates, $24b; Facebook, $18b; Alibaba, $12b; Blackrock, $11b; McKinsey & Co. $8b; and Twitter, $2.2b. While Alibaba made $14.3b in sales on a day in November 2015, Chad’s annual GDP is $14b.

38. Diseases were very much of a puzzle in the time of John Snow. Science, in offering explanation later via the germ theory saved humanity from excessive fetish and superstition.

39. Tien-Hui Chiang, “Can cultural localization protect national identity in the era of globalization? Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2019, 51;541-545.

40. Adiele Afigbo, Igbo Experience: A Prolegomenon, (Okigwe, Whytem Publishers for CEDESC, nd).

41. Adiele Afigbo, The Age of Innocence, The Igbos and their Neighbours in Precolonial Times, Ahiajoku lecture, Owerri Cultural Division, Ministry of Information, Culture, Youth and Sports, 1981.

42. The conceptualization of Iduu n’oba is about the faraway remote, outlandish nature and therefore questionable integrity of news or story in assessment situations.

43. Amin Ghaziani, “Gay Enclaves Face Prospect of being passé”: How Assimilation affects the Spatial Expressions of Sexuality in the United States”, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2015 756-777, DOI:10.111/1468-2427-12209.

44. The property market in the United States for long has suffered distortions from convincing white property owners to sell on the cheap under the threat that minorities are moving in as a result and a crash in property value is imminent.

45. Note how meaning of Cathedrals have changed and new forms of usage bordering on the profane have been found, all closely following the historical decline in traditional religious faiths and institutionalizing trend of private, rather than shared faith.

46. . Sir Halford Mackinder aptly captured his article submitted to the Royal Geog Society in 1904 which argued for his Heartland Theory. “The Geographical Pivot of History”. In it he held that the core of global influence is to be found in an area that has considerable size, a wealth of resources and a high population and Eurasia fits the bill. Whichever nation controls the Heartland commands the world. Germany’s World War II Invasion of Russia, is believed, and has roots in this theory.