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Energy and Development: A Comparative Appraisal of the Impact of Coal Mining in Britain, the United States, and Twentieth-Century Colonial Africa
Muhammed, Yusuf Olaide
Muhammed, Yusuf Olaide
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Conference paper
Date
2025-03-15
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History
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DOI
https://doi.org/10.34944/7357-be64
Abstract
Since the eighteenth century, mined coal has been an imperative energy source for enhancing agricultural systems, commerce, and industrial development. The mining industry “has become a global activity critical to wealth creation, power structures and…human progress”. While substantial evidence indicates that coal is mined and used in Europe, the Americas, and other regions, including Africa, the impact of coal-fired energy on socioeconomic and industrial development was far more significant in the Northern Hemisphere. This raises a pertinent question: how and why did coal catalyze industrialization in the developed world—Britain and the United States, yet fail to yield similar transformative results in other world regions? This paper engages in a comparative analysis of the impact of mined coal on Britain and the United States, juxtaposing it with the experience of Africa. Using colonial documents, newspapers, and secondary sources, the paper demonstrates that while the use of mined coal in Britain and the United States was multifaceted—used in the iron and steel industry, textile industry, electricity generation, for powering steam engines, and transport technology, the motive for the establishment of collieries in Africa—Nigeria and South Africa was mainly to power railroads and steamships that would facilitate the exportation of the continent’s cash crop and mineral resources to the imperial metropolis in Europe. Given the centrality of energy to development, this paper argues that the intricate interplay of capitalist and colonial legacies, which dictated the contrasting use of coal-fired energy in Britain and the United States compared to Africa, played a crucial role in the divergent trajectories of industrialization between the two regions.
Description
A paper presented at the 30th James A. Barnes Graduate History Conference, which took place March 14-15, 2025 in Philadelphia, PA.
Citation
Muhammed, Yusuf Olaide. "Energy and Development: A Comparative Appraisal of the Impact of Coal Mining in Britain, the United States, and Twentieth-Century Colonial Africa." Paper presented at 30th James A. Barnes Graduate History Conference, Philadelphia, PA, March 2025.
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