Traders arrived in Africa and set up trading posts all along the land mass of the great continent. They arrived because of sailing ships and because it's what men do. The setting up of the cruel forces of empire followed, because it's what men do. But imagine the thrill of the traders and explorers. Timeless literature and poetry came from those adventures
I think these postcards--esp. the ones from 'before' mass tourism--also show a kind of curiosity of actually going 'there'. There's no comparison to the virtually completely artificial and sanitised versions of 'tourism' these days…
Nostalgia for life before the Great War, felt for places most affected, places one has never seen is like a delirium telling us the world must have been so much more beautiful and so much better then.
I never thought about google cars before, always assuming satellites took street images. Another aspect of the world of toys having replaced the world of wars with heroes for school kids and patriotic citizens. Google searches show it's just another ugly city that arose with funny money exchanged by thugs and political powers as colonial powers left It has an ancient Roman arch of Marcus Aurelius - not exactly a reason to visit.
The 2023 movie IO CAPITANO shows quite a view of what became of French Northwest Africa, a coming of age story with a thrilling boat ride that launches from Libya, a port near or at Tripoli - dramatic realism of northern Africa to contrast with our nostalgia for softened views of colonialism.
Thank goodness for photographers and filmmakers tweaking our sense of history and of the present.
You raise a very good point: imagery, and imagined aspects, past and present vs. realities, good and bad.
I would guess (and place emphasis on the word 'guess') that the proverbial world of yesterday was both way more complex and way more variegated than we later generations imagine. And can imagine.
Traders arrived in Africa and set up trading posts all along the land mass of the great continent. They arrived because of sailing ships and because it's what men do. The setting up of the cruel forces of empire followed, because it's what men do. But imagine the thrill of the traders and explorers. Timeless literature and poetry came from those adventures
I think these postcards--esp. the ones from 'before' mass tourism--also show a kind of curiosity of actually going 'there'. There's no comparison to the virtually completely artificial and sanitised versions of 'tourism' these days…
Nostalgia for life before the Great War, felt for places most affected, places one has never seen is like a delirium telling us the world must have been so much more beautiful and so much better then.
I never thought about google cars before, always assuming satellites took street images. Another aspect of the world of toys having replaced the world of wars with heroes for school kids and patriotic citizens. Google searches show it's just another ugly city that arose with funny money exchanged by thugs and political powers as colonial powers left It has an ancient Roman arch of Marcus Aurelius - not exactly a reason to visit.
The 2023 movie IO CAPITANO shows quite a view of what became of French Northwest Africa, a coming of age story with a thrilling boat ride that launches from Libya, a port near or at Tripoli - dramatic realism of northern Africa to contrast with our nostalgia for softened views of colonialism.
Thank goodness for photographers and filmmakers tweaking our sense of history and of the present.
You raise a very good point: imagery, and imagined aspects, past and present vs. realities, good and bad.
I would guess (and place emphasis on the word 'guess') that the proverbial world of yesterday was both way more complex and way more variegated than we later generations imagine. And can imagine.
Boy oh boy. Get ready for my next article!
Edit: it's taken me months to write...