ITT: We discuss topics we wish we knew more about and others

>>1707054
Unfortunately, most African cultures hadn't really developed a written language or a systematic effort of writing down history, so we know very little about the continent before colonisation.

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>>1707054
i'd like to know more about japan.

The so-called "PIE people" and their hyper-advanced space-faring civilization.

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>>1707084
How far back do you want to go? This book is pretty good for an overall backstory of Japan, though it was written in the 80s so the current stuff is a little out of date.

You should check out the works of Paul B. Henze and John Thornton OP

They wuz kangz n shit

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>>1707084

you forgot the kurils, brah.

>>1707054
Thomas Pakenham is pretty good for studying Africa.

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>>1707054
It's a bit old, but;
>http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0004/000422/042225eo.pdf
>http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001842/184265eo.pdf
>http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001842/184282eo.pdf
>http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001842/184287eo.pdf
>http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001215/121577eo.pdf
>http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001842/184295eo.pdf

>Early agriculture
https://anthropology.artsci.wustl.edu/files/anthropology/imce/Marshall_and_Hildebrand_2002.pdf
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235410801_A_developmental_history_of_West_African_agriculture

>Metallurgy
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001338/133843e.pdf

>Warfare in Atlantic Africa 1500-1800 (also anything else by J. K. Thornton is great)
https://marxistnkrumaistforum.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/thornton-warfare-in-atlantic-africa-1500e280931800.pdf

>tsetse flies
http://healthpolicy.fsi.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/tsetse_working_paper.pdf

>effects of the slave trades
http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/nunn/files/the_long_term_effects.pdf
https://www.princeton.edu/~lwantche/The_Slave_Trade_and_the_Origins_of_Mistrust_in_Africa_Use_This_One

>Nigeria and Ife
http://jambo.africa.kyoto-u.ac.jp/kiroku/asm_normal/abstracts/pdf/19-1/35-54.pdf
http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/blier/files/blier.pdf
http://www.collegeart.org/pdf/artbulletin/Art%20Bulletin%20Vol%2067%20No%203%20Blier.pdf
http://faculty.risd.edu/bcampbel/Drewal-IfeOrigin.pdf

>Akan
https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00701184/document

>Ethiopia
http://www.uu.se/digitalAssets/9/9650_FattovichAll.pdf
http://www.dskmariam.org/artsandlitreature/litreature/pdf/aksum.pdf
http://www.britac.ac.uk/pubs/proc/files/111p023.pdf
http://www.persee.fr/docAsPDF/ethio_0066-2127_2010_num_25_1_1412.pdf
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.374.313&rep=rep1&type=pdf

>Zimbabwe
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258161277_New_Pathways_of_Sociopolitical_Complexity_in_Southern_Africa

>>1707054
South and Central America after the majority of colonies were gone/had rebelled. All I've read about them is from a few small interactions with the United States. Seems weird to me that I know almost nothing about what happened in an entire continent for ~200 years.

>>1707063
What do you mean. there was very good accounts by Euros and middle Eastern people before colonization unless you mean before that in which that case it's true. There's like archeology and stuff like that to find where people have settled or the history of that location but instability in many parts makes that hard. On top of that you can use local lore and history as a springboard on where to find stuff or to get a picture of a places history but you need multiple sources and it can't be 100% relied on until confirmed. The Icelandic Saga was written by an Icelandic priest after he put the oral lore he received from many people that he put to paper but even though there were a lot of parts that were reliable or matched the reality of the events he clearly said that there are some parts that he back then couldn't really certify as the 100% truth (although it was certified much much later).

>>1707883
It's better to say pre-contact i guess if you want a TL:DR.