State Building in Africa
The same sentence again
- In Africa, as in Eurasia and the Americas, state systems demonstrated continuity, innovation and diversity and expanded in scope and reach.
- The CED repeats its formula a third time, which tells you the frame matters more than the region.
- Its examples here: Great Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, and the Hausa kingdoms.
Select all the African state systems the CED names.
Delhi is in South Asia, subtopic 1.2.
Great Zimbabwe: a trade-fed interior state
- Great Zimbabwe sat inland but lived off the Indian Ocean trade, exporting gold and ivory through coastal partners.
- Its stone enclosures are the evidence of a state that could command labour on a large scale.
- It is the CED's cleanest African example of reach — control extending well past a single settlement.
Great Zimbabwe's wealth came mainly from...
It was inland but connected to the Indian Ocean through coastal partners.
Ethiopia: continuity in a Christian state
- Ethiopia was a Christian kingdom in a region increasingly shaped by Islam.
- It kept a distinct church, script and royal tradition across centuries — the CED's word for that is continuity.
- It also shows that religion and state can reinforce each other without either being imported wholesale.
What was this state's source of power?
Sort each case by its power base.
Ethiopia's distinct church, script and royal tradition are an example of ____.
One of the CED's three words for state systems in this period.
"Africa" is not one case. The CED's three examples have three different power bases — long-distance trade, religious and dynastic continuity, and a network of trading cities. An answer that treats African state-building as a single pattern has ignored the word diversity in the CED's own sentence.
A single Hausa ruler governed all the Hausa kingdoms.
They were a network of city-states — a pattern resembling the Maya more than the Inca.
The Hausa kingdoms: many states, one network
- The Hausa were a set of city-states in West Africa, trading with each other and across the Sahara.
- No single Hausa ruler governed the rest — the pattern resembles the Maya more than the Inca.
- That resemblance across two hemispheres is exactly the sort of comparison unit 1 ends with.
Match each African state to its power base.
Naming the source of power is what turns a name into an argument.
Three states, three different sources of power
- Great Zimbabwe: long-distance trade. Ethiopia: religion and dynastic continuity. Hausa: a network of trading cities.
- Naming the source of power is what turns a name into an argument.
- An exam answer needs one African state explained, not three listed.
Great Zimbabwe is inland and rich; Ethiopia is Christian and continuous; the Hausa are many and networked. Put them beside the Americas and a pattern appears that crosses oceans: city-state networks (Hausa, Maya) and centralised extractors (Zimbabwe, Inca) are two recurring answers to the same problem.
In Africa, as in Eurasia and the Americas, state systems demonstrated continuity, innovation and diversity and expanded in scope and reach. Great Zimbabwe lived off long-distance trade, Ethiopia on religious and dynastic continuity, the Hausa kingdoms as a network of trading city-states.