Why would this shock Americans? Basically Americans have been lied to through maps. It's difficult to display the surface of the globe (sphere-ish) on a two dimensional surface. In fact, the way they do it is by basically shining light through a 3D representation of Earth and recording what gets projected onto some other surface be it a flat sheet, curved, etc. The projections all differ according to how they are set up. And they all distort...they distort at least one of six to varying degrees....bearing, distance, direction, area, shape, and scale. You have to pick which inaccurate portrayal of the Earth you want. America picked one that showed our land mass prominently and that is what we are used to. One problem....is distorts badly as you near the poles, so equatorial Africa looks relatively smaller than it actually is. Think the really stretched out looking Canada. Doesn't exist in reality. Compare what you are used to, the Mercator Projection, to a globe. You aren't crazy....something is askew!
I think it's important to take things into perspective. Africa may not have the population of Asia or the wealth of Europe, but it's a huge place. Some say the future of the world lies in Africa. It is being decimated by HIV/AIDS and still suffers from diseases like malaria and tuberculosis. China is buying land rights to huge chunks of agricultural lands. Global climate change may hit Africa hard. We may see huge internal migration that causes strife, civil war, and, yes, even genocide. The world owes Africa.....we have stripped wealth from it for centuries.
