Chapter 19 "How Africa Became Black" Summary and Analysis

Although Westerners often view Africa as monolithic and black, Africa is actually very diverse. Diamond argues that this diversity resulted from the diverse geography of Africa itself. Africa is home to five major human groups, blacks, whites, African Pygmies, Khoisan, and Asians. Each of these groups is, in turn, very diverse. Both Pygmies and Khoisans have hunter-gatherers societies yet today, although they are fast disappearing.

As with Diamond's examination of China, he also turns to languages in this chapter to explain the transitions and developments in Africa. He finds six language families in Africa, Afro-Asiatic, Niger-Congo, Bantu, Nilo-Saharan, Khoisan, and Austronesian. As with China, many of the original languages have disappeared as groups were conquered or absorbed into other groups. The Pygmies, for example, do not have their own language family...