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Posted on 11/04/2011 6:50:09 AM PDT by Kaslin
What were the key changes? I'd guess it was the defeat of the Dutch and then the French that put England on it's 180 year run at the top of the leagues (and it was THE superpower for 103 years from the defeat of Napoleon until the end of WWI.
Actually, my impression has been that the most radical, socialist types were likely to be in the forefront of domestic politics when the colonial powers left, so they would be the rulers of the new regime...and we all know what happens when liberals run a government.
The aqueduct!
The original post claimed that countries never colonised by the west were better off than those that had been. To whatever greater of lesser degree of influence the "colonial" western power exertedm, the balance of evidence favours the postulate that those countries that were colonised/occupied by western countries are better off economically as a result.
The constitution of post war Japan was essentially written by two senior US army officers over the objections of the post war Japanese politicians. The Japanese politicians wanted to amend the Meji constitution but were over-ruled by the US " Shogun". The rights of women in Japan would have been trampled on had it not been for the US imposing a western democratic model on the Japanese. Japan did not regain its soverignty until 1952. It may not have been a colony in the 19C sense of the word but it was in fact a protectorate of the US, which continues to a limited extent to this day. South Korea likewise owes its existence to the UN (read US and allies) and has been pushed and prodded into a Western Democratic model when it was flirting with authoritarian rule.
The British did not set out to build an Empire. Their interest was in trade, and much of their acquisition of empire was an attempt to protect their source of spices, etc. and their trade routes. In some cases, it was the result of protecting their citizens who had settled in foreign lands for their own reasons, as in N. America.
There were radical socialist types and then there were radical socialist types. The first kind left the colonial administrators in place to run things as they had before, only there was a new boss to rake in the profits. Those former colonies tended to keep some semblance of order and prosperity and the slide into the miasma of socialism was gradual. The other kind kicked out the colonial administrators, and then pancaked the country fairly quickly. Rhodesia/Zimbabwe is a very good recent case study on how that works.
The British did not invent the concentration camp.
The very word is an Anglicisation of the Spanish word ‘recontrados’. It was the Spanish who invented them, in Cuba.
It was unintentional, and when the full horror of the camps became known in Britain, there was a huge press, political and public outcry. The camps were immediately handed over to civilian control, and hundreds of doctors and nurses and thousands of tons of equipment headed to South Africa.
The deaths happened because the military made a terrible balls-up of running the camps, aliied to the Boers having a genetic suseptibility to certain diseases due to interbreeding (the Boers did not breed with the other European groups).
And your point about responsibility can be made just as much by me about YOUR treatment of the Native American (which makes the British treatment of the Boers look benevolent). Or are the Limeys only sinners?.
Again, the British did not invent the concentration camp.
That is a myth.
And in the process they brought a superior civilization to savages and other unsavory nations/tribes which was a moral good.
The Boers stole the country from the blacks, so lets not get teary eyed about it being ‘their’ country. And you are rather nieve about the Boers, who were just as ruthless and rapacious as the others.
Yawn. Dont you get bored with your Anglophobia?.
I know everyone else does.
England?.
It ceased to be England in 1707. And if any part of the UK punched above its weight, it was the Scots. From the mid 18th C to the end of Empire, it was a British Empire essentially run by the Scots.
England and Britain are not the same.
Your error is worse, because you mention Hong Kong, a British colony famously founded by two legendary Scotsman, Jardine and Mathieson.
Britain was THE superpower from 1763 to 1940.
I would therefore argue 177 years, not 103.
The former year was the end of the Seven Years War, which cemented British superiority in North America and the Atlantic, and weakened the French at sea and on land.
Britain had more territory in 1919 than ever before, had been the major Western country in the victory of WW1, and retained its preeminent military, political and economic power until that summer of 1940.
‘We remain in awe of the enormity and dominance of the Roman Empire — and rightly so — but did you realize that at its height, the British Empire was the largest empire ever, covering a quarter of the world — even half, if you consider its control of the oceans — and governing a quarter of the people on the planet?’
Dear me. I thought everyone knew this.
Most of the places that were British colonies were better off structurally, economically, and socially when they were colonies than they are now.
One of the greatest men of world history was William Wilberforce. Now sadly forgotten, he persuaded Parliament to abolish the slave trade and about thirty years later to abolish the practice throughout the Empire. Not only this but he was leader of the evangelical movement to reform the manners of the British people. Its lasting effect can be seen in the character of the nation that rallied behind Churchill to resist the takeover by Europe by Hitler and his minions. Compare his accomplishments with those of his contemporary Napoleon. Thank God that we have not entirely forgotten a man to whom we owe so much.
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