French Sudan change until 1933. At that point, the colony of the French Upper Volta ("Haute-Volta", modern Burkina Faso) dissolved, and the northern territory was added to French Sudan. In 1947, Upper Volta was reestablished, and the French Sudan borders became those that eventually became the borders of Mali. Kayes was the original capital city from the 1890s until 1908, when the capital moved to Bamako, where it remains. The colony supported mostly rain-fed agriculture, with limited irrigation for its first 30 years. The only cash crops were nuts gathered close to the railroad between Kayes and Bamako. However, following successful tests
What Is a Nation? survive in adverse conditions. He gives some examples of countries like Turkey and Bohemia where there is rigid stratification, or where different communities are played off against one another, and where the homogenization of different groups could not take place, resulting in a failure of nationhood. This leads to one of the most frequently quoted statements in the essay: Yet the essence of a nation is that all individuals have many things in common, and also that they have forgotten many things. No French citizen knows whether he is a Burgundian, an Alan, a Taifale, or a Visigoth, yet every