Conclusions


 * Igbo communities lived in the difficult environments of the premodern world.
 * Their goals were to live free from crime and sickness, to live in peace with themselves and their neighbors, and to produce enough food.
 * The careful reader should avoid making false comparisons between pre-modern African societies and modern European and American societies.
 * The fact that it took barely a hundred years (1857 - 1960) for the British to tear apart a society that had taken thousands of years to evolve suggests that European colonialism was a potent agent of change.
 * Christianity and Western education swept the Igbo people off their feet.
 * Reasons for their sudden rush to embrace Western civilization:
 * The Igbo were quick to percieve the importance of Western education in the new colonial structure.
 * Igbo people were, and still are, often very eager to accept change.
 * Ties that bound the communities disintegrated.
 * Barely a hundred years ago, Igbo people could hardly read or write. Today, Igbo professors occupy important faculty positions in universities in Africa, Europe, and America.
 * The last question is: to what extent they will continue to barter their culture for material progress and be completely devoured by Western civilization?