The imperialism of Britain

[RyVal]

Although on a serious note yes some good ideas have come out of countries England has occupied. Boolean algebra was invented by an Irishman and is used in computers, Submarines was also an Irishman, another Irishman introduced the word electron for its charge, also the first experimental verifaction of E=mc[sup]2[/sup] was done by another Irish Scientist and an American one, the unit of heat the kelvin and absolute zero was a Scottish Scientist. I am not saying that England did or even try to steal these ideas but good ideas and concepts have come out of areas England occupied.

I'm sensing a somewhat Anglophobic viewpoint, here.

The Scottish Enlightenment, for example, happened post-Union. Since Scotland was a part of the British Empire, its achievements were Great Britain's achievements, just as the achievements of Texas are the achievements of the USA. Furthermore, it's quite unfair to claim that England didn't contribute any ideas to the empire but merely stole them from the countries it annexed.

I don't want to get into a pissing match over which Home Nation contributed the most.

 

[thylasos]

The empire spread a certain level of infrastructure in countries where it didn't exist already, whether the goal was to facilitate trade or move troops more quickly (to stop the French encircling West African coastal possessions, for example).

That's all I'll say for it. In areas where informal empire operated, there were also incidences of educated middle classes emerging which would later take over the the governance of those areas.

I'm sure there're a couple more piecemeal acheivements which we can chalk up as long-lasting benefits of colonialism, but otherwise the British Empire had a bloody awful record, in terms of variously immediate and long-lasting devastation of indigenous peoples.

 

[ZydrateDealer]

Just with the facts, we're not America (From the info I've been given), no sugar coating, my teacher didn't even try to make the colonisation even remotely justifiable. It was wrong, and the facts are presented to you as such.

We were taught it with bias...the bias that it was wrong, I'm not so sure unifying the world under one empire that's controlled democratically is that wrong, the slave trade, and colonisation is a bit different but not the whole foundation of our empire. The people of the time held the view that slavery and colonisation were acceptable there's no bias that can change that fact.

 

[DSK-]

From what I learned it was pretty much unbiased. Documentaries on TV are also more or less unbiased and most of the time focus on the wrong doings of the Empire.

The Empire was a necessity for Britain. I don't agree with a lot of things that happened around the time it was being created and ruled, but it was necessary for the survival of Britain in both Europe and for it's citizens. As a result there were a fair few technological breakthroughs also.

 

[AngloDoom]

We don't sugar-coat because you can't. Our country didn't get an empire that big by asking nicely.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Although on a serious note yes some good ideas have come out of countries England has occupied. Boolean algebra was invented by an Irishman and is used in computers, Submarines was also an Irishman, another Irishman introduced the word electron for its charge, also the first experimental verifaction of E=mc[sup]2[/sup] was done by another Irish Scientist and an American one, the unit of heat the kelvin and absolute zero was a Scottish Scientist. I am not saying that England did or even try to steal these ideas but good ideas and concepts have come out of areas England occupied.

I'm sensing a somewhat Anglophobic viewpoint, here.

The Scottish Enlightenment, for example, happened post-Union. Since Scotland was a part of the British Empire, its achievements were Great Britain's achievements, just as the achievements of Texas are the achievements of the USA. Furthermore, it's quite unfair to claim that England didn't contribute any ideas to the empire but merely stole them from the countries it annexed.

I don't want to get into a pissing match over which Home Nation contributed the most.

The USA is a bit different from the British Empire. Being that the USA is more like a working version of the EU or what the EU wants to be. I never said England didn't contribute anything. I am talking about The British Empire owning these achievements as in the British Empire England is no more than a Texas or a California. so while England did contribute which I never said that it didn't it did not contribute everything.

 

[Freeakoid3005]

I didn't get taught about it in school at all. In fact, I didn't even know the empire existed until after I'd finished school and was told about it by my brother, prompting me to do my own studies on the subject.

I had a suprisingly similar experience, with it not really being mentioned in school as a subject and finding out about it from research etc. Its not really considered a big thing over here

 

[Eisenfaust]

As with all aspects of our history, nothing is hidden or sugar-coated in any way. Totally bullshit free. There's no way you could soften it when teaching about how we once ran half the world and were generally shit to a lot of people.

Although some good did come out of it, as our knowlege of engineering (and technology in general) advanced, our wide-reaching empire meant that these advances were felt worldwide.

SOME good? try a whole heap of good... australia (yes, yes, i mean as we know it in modern times, etc) wouldn't exist without you... so thanks, british imperialism! besides... back then everyone was generally shit to a lot of people, you guys just seem to get a bad rap because you controlled the world so your... cruelty was just on a larger scale than everyone else...

then again, i haven't read too much about "the true horrors of british imperialism!!!" or whatever, so i'm sure many people will feel free to dramatically disagree with me

 

[Triangulon]

I was taught next to nothing about British history in school. Fortunately I have an isatiable thirst for reading and have managed to plough through plenty of material since. Most of my current reading is on the Falklands as I was pretty disgusted by my lack of knowledge on so relatively recent a conflict. However if anyone is interested in primarily naval history in around the 18th century I heartily reccomend Sam Willis' The Fighting Temeraire. One of the best books I have read in months.

I don't like the massively negative slant that gets put on history, in particular ours. Fair enough, by today's standards imperialsim is not the done thing, but two or three hundred years ago it was par for the course. I don't understand why we get a bashing for our empire yet no-one (it seems) complains about the French, Dutch or Spanish. I for one am extermely proud of our history and heritage.

I agree there are some things in British history which are shameful. We invented concentration camps during the Boer War and it appears we also knew about Katyn. However I imagine that no nation is entirely exempt from this.

There are many great things to come from our history. One example would be that British law was the first at the time to firmly decree that all men were legally equal regardless of race (just prior to the Zulu war).

 

[MagicMouse]

Wow, I am seeing some major misconceptions about American education here. It looks like all of you "No BS, no sugar coated, all truth" education got ruined by your media.

I have taken a History class every single year of my schooling so far and we do not glorify anything. We were taught:

Slavery was a horrible abomination supported by the Gov. (we watched videos were students cried)

We were taught about Vietnam and the horrible blunder that was. (more crying)

We were taught that the Revolution was a radical movement by a few key politicians and barely made it

Then in us History we were taught about the various horrible corruptions of our Government

We didn't skip over internment camps in WW2 section

I certainly don't see any flag waving there, oh and by the way the Pledge is optional.

Ok, back on topic What I learned about the British empire was mostly from world history class and surprisingly British Literature class. Just the fact that I learned about it in two classes and some British people here saying they didn't learn anything goes to show something.
/longpost

 

[Spygon]

Not huge amount have been cover it was basically the fight with the french and spanish over the americanas then that british imperialism had it bad and good parts alot of nations that we in it.Including a bit more of a closer look at the slave trade.

The industrial revolution and ww1 while being shown it effects on the empire as a whole.Then the indian rebelion and gandhi.How the british army murdered a lot of unarmed indians *sigh* then left before we mucked it up even more.Then it feeds into world war 2 and how both world wars had crippled the economy removing us from a super power on the world stage while slowy disolveing the empire bit by bit after that.

I took history so that is why i was proberly taught more than others from my country

 

[Fensfield]

As other have said, most people over here are taught that the empire was a great achievement but involved an awful, awful lot of bad on Britain's part. That said, though, while we do generally get the gory details when studying it (at least above college level, it isn't looked at too horribly much below that), I did feel there was still a measure of 'opportunity missed' about the subject.

So... yeah.

Oh and Britain wasn't solely bashed. It was made clear the rest of Europe was heavily into empire building and all, albeit not to the same extent or degree of success, and they also made sure to teach a little about the countries that used to be in the empire but aren't any more, and what became of them afterwards. Strangely, America didn't get focussed on terribly much at all, at least once we'd covered the initial squabling between the European powers over who owned what.

 

[GBlair88]

We didn't actually do much British history at my schools, at least not during that era. My GCSE level history was about more recent history, WWI, Germany between the wars, some WWII and the Cold war.

 

[manythings]

We were taught about the slave trade, but scant little about the British Empire itself. The industrial revolution i think is in the national curriculum, but curiously the empire isn't. However, i would not be surprised if they implemented some education reforms and put the British Empire on the curriculum some time soon.

Most Brit's know that the Empire generally wasn't exactly an ethical thing, but at the same time carn't help but be at least a bit proud that it was the largest and most widespread in the world. Britain ruled 1/5th of the earth's surface and 1/4 of the worlds population or something like that..you often hear that statistic in the UK.

An awful lot of genocide was involved and a lot of it was here in Ireland. We didn't fight 800 years of wars for independence because the english monarchy were nice.

 

[Terminal Blue]

In my education it was given very, very limited scope mostly from a purely 'dry' historical perspective with as little focus on actual people as possible.. I studied post-colonial theory pretty extensively in my undergrad and it's the first time I'd heard of a lot of the bad stuff.

What actually sickens me a little is that I remember being taught to feel slightly proud of the Empire. There's always this big map session where your teacher points out how much of the world it used to cover, and at the time you wouldn't have the vaguest impression that there might have been people down there getting seriously mistreated.

I'll admit though, a lot of the bad stuff is complicated and it would be hard to teach children that kind of detail about the inglorious past of their own country. We did the American West in GCSE and it took long enough for some kids to grasp that the native Americans got seriously dicked on and weren't crazy savages.

 

[Chechosaurus]

It's not taught in great depth in my experience. I did it at A-Level and because it is such a massive and complex part of history, it is impossible to cover everything and so it is somewhat glazed over. Although, that being said, we were taught about the uglier parts of our past which, I believe, is very important. It is necessary for the inhabitants of every nation to understand that their past is far from clean.

 

[Biffin Bridge]

Empire building is just one of those things that humans do and have done for millenia. The question of whether the results are good or bad are irrelevant as you cannot compare the end results.

Take India and Pakistan, the wars they have fought in the recent past were probably a direct result of the actions of the British Empire. However it is impossible to tell whether their general cultural/religious differences and the introduction of sophisticated weapons may have led to an inevitable conflict anyway.

Since the advent of nuclear weapons Empire building is virtually impossible. Big business and the worldwide banking system is pretty much the only way to siphon another nations wealth these days.