Withering assessment of IJN & IJA

[Schuultz]

@Timbo_in_Oz

I feel quite strongly on the evidence - most of it unsuppressed unlike much of that on Japan - that the British Empire was the least exploitative empire, and had the most positive impact. Still with us too most of that.

I’m sorry, but this, in my eyes, is a ludicrous statement.

How was the British Empire anything but extremely exploitative? I’m sure when you ask either Indians, or Chinese, Africans, they well tell you something quite different. Let alone the Native Americans or Native Australians.

The moment an Empire needs an entire island at the other end of the world just to store its criminals, I would call it extremely repressive - and that’s only its own country, not even its colonies!

Let’s face it: The vast majority of what we today accept as official history is what has been written by all the British Lords, officers, colonial landlords, etc, painting the picture of the harmonious lord/servant. Of course they wouldn’t see anything wrong with the Empire.

Your statement seems to be largely based on the fact that there has been no other Empire that managed to expand as far as those of the Britons and keep it for the period of time the Redcoats did.

You can hardly compare the situation in a country that has been occupied for maybe a couple of years with one that has been occupied for several generations!

Also, regarding positive impact:

I don’t see that - especially not the most. You could argue that even the Romans outdid the Britons in this regard, bringing advanced mathematics and architecture, such as Aqueducts to the conquered nations. What good, by comparison, did India learn from its British conquerors, other than the rules for Cricket?

Even today, take a stroll through Buckingham Palace - anybody should get sickened by the continued proud display of the cultural and historical treasures stolen from dozens - if not hundreds - of peoples over the centuries and denied from their rightful owners. This is, of course, not only a British occurrence but can be found in almost all European and American museums.

This is not meant as a complete riff on the British Empire - but rather a (slightly overreacting) counterargument to your little claim.

[Rising_Sun]

@Schuultz

You could argue that even the Romans outdid the Britons in this regard, bringing advanced mathematics and architecture, such as Aqueducts to the conquered nations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWfh6sGyso

[Timbo_in_Oz]

Firstly, I too am angered by the distance between what humans en masse end up creating, and our shared ideals globally. And, by the smugness of those in power and the deep unwillingness to think about redesign. but I ahve enough sense to face that history is the past and can’t be changed.

Given the tone of your post, I think you might still have missed the point inherent in the Monty Python sketch from “the Life of Brian”.

the BE brought with it, implicitly and explicitly the market capitalism system and exploitation of those without market power, but it also brought with it the benefits of that system, and

the rule of law,
roads,
railways,
science,
medicine,
and relative peace after about 1810 in India. leaving aside the 1857 war of independence
the population grew
incomes grew

They did not succeed in converting them to Christianity. Swings and round-abouts, eh?

To suggest as you have done that my post implied that I thought the BE wasn’t backed up by arms and force, or that people weren’t exploited, or killed. Reflects more about your own biases than it actually debates what I wrote - which IMO survives your points - because I was not unaware of imperialism’s major faults in any case.

A balanced and quite critical view of the British Empire is available to you right now in the orange Penguin’s series. ''Empire" by Niall Ferguson, and while he IS a TV Historian he’s also a real academic one as well.

At a global level, the BE stood up to Hitler, for just long enough on its own. The second war basically ate up any of the wealth left from WWI. Not a bad ending for the ‘least bad’ of empire.

Least bad is what we mostly get with large human activity systems, like the global economy, and democratic government. No?!

Human history is like that.

I am currently working my way through a history of Scotland (and in passing of England and Ireland), soaked with blood and lies and spin, just like Germany’s is I’d be betting, no?

As a student of history, are you aware that ‘frightfulness’ was German Army policy for the wheel through Belgium in 1914?