Displaying items by tag: Industrial revolution

Abstract

We see frequent mentions and references to what is popularly called “the Fourth Industrial Revolution”.  As East Africans by birth (Martin and Odoch) and by commitment (Donna) we are compelled to take exception to our region’s exclusion from the very concept of ‘Revolution’, in general and ‘Industrial Revolution’, in particular.  The exclusion is intellectually offensive because it excludes 1.8 million years of accomplishments many of which laid the foundations of later developments globally.  We [the authors of this article] describe several ‘industrial revolutions’ that occurred before the late 1700s when the first accepted Industrial Revolution took place. We also describe the subsequent, so-called Second, and Third industrial revolutions postulated and reified by knowledge systems rooted in European history and culture.  To this we add our collective and individual critiques of the processes that enabled colonial and religious powers to ignore, belittle and negate the seminal participation of East Africans in industrial development from the very beginning. We close with a description of some examples of the damage this has done to East African ‘development’ in general and in particular.

Key words: Africa, industry, revolution, invention, innovation, discovery