ABSTRACT
In a book, compiled from a collection of Ohlin lecturers, 1 Paul Krugman ( 1996 ) starts with a story about how European knowledge of Africa has evolved over the last 500 years. Krugman cites a paper by Craig Murphy, entitled “The Evolution of Ignorance in European Mapping of Africa, 1500-1800”. The main point made by Krugman in telling this story is that as European knowledge of Africa advanced – as a result of progress in map-making technology and communications – the map of Africa, and primarily the stories about Africa, remained sensationally inaccurate, often distorted by design. For instance, even as late as the eighteenth century, there were popular myths about certain regions in Africa “inhabited by men with their mouths in their stomachs”. Adam Hochschild talks about a “Benedictine monk who mapped the world about 1350 [ AD ] and claimed that Africa contained one-eyed people who used their feet to cover their heads”. He also reports that a geographer, during the fteenth century, “announced that the continent held people with one leg, three faces, and heads of lions” (cited in Fredland, 2001 : 26).
