Britain's Empire: Resistance, Repression and Revolt

[Attrition]

Britain's Empire: Resistance, Repression and Revolt by Richard Gott.

Looks to be a counterblast to the likes of Niall Fergusen's masturbatory 'empire-as-social-services-department' view of the phenomenon, in favour of empire-as-nazism-avant-la-lettre, a much less anglocentric and nauseating analysis.

[heimwehr danzig]

Interesting.
I do think that the view of the Empire has been obscured under general ignorance for too long. Most brits know little or nothing of the Empire; it is not something commonly taught in schools these days, and nor does it always form part of 'popular' history.
As empires go, I must admit that the brits gave back more than most, but we still took a heck of a lot; and often at the point of a bayonet.
How many people know, for instance, that we used concentration camps on the Boers in South Africa, or that we fought two wars against the Chinese to keep the drug trade flowing freely?
I don't think its all that healthy to indulge in an orgy of self flagellation, as Germans all too often do when looking back on the last century, but all countries have skeletons in their closests; high time we brits faced up to our own I think.

[South]

Good morning Attrition and Heimwehr,

Is not the common denominator question really about the value - or lack thereof - of the world's imperial system?

I know of Asians who glow with accomplishment with their "OBE"s and other awards.

Without mentioning the negative aspects, the US, in its imperial role, introduced major public health programs into its coloni.......its insular possessions.

The Suez Canal and the Panama Canal weren't built by the locals, less the harsh labor.


Warm regards,

Bob

[Gooner1]

A non-jaundiced reader might enjoy both authors. It is perhaps not helpful to note that one author earns gazillions of dollars whilst the other only took expenses from the KGB

[phylo_roadking]

I know of Asians who glow with accomplishment with their "OBE"s and other awards.

Indeed. Should Jeremy Paxman's recent "Empire" series ever appear on PBS in the States, try and get to see it It would be fair to say that in MANY places - including India - where the legacy of empire should supposedly be reviled...the exact opposite is true, and the local populations are treasuring/harking back to the glories of Empire!

[Kilgore Trout]

There is sugar and salt in every government form, every empire. Quote the Eagles "there ain't no Shangri-La." Many people seek and need considerable order in their lives. Some in Russia today pine for the days of "Dear Father" (Dzugashvili). Some in Germany/central Europe praise Hitler. Others do not desire this order. If you can find it, I suggest you read "A History of Europe" by H.A.L. Fisher. Published in 1936 (Fisher died in 1940), it is geographically obsolete, but his evaluations of systems, "thumbnail" descriptions of persons , and conclusions about the state of affiars of the world are among the finest I have ever encountered.

[Attrition]

I last read it in the 1980s. I fancy that he'd look askance at contemporary western societies and mutter about Weimar being one step away from armageddon.

[Kilgore Trout]

I agree.

[heimwehr danzig]

I agree that there are those who do hark back to the days of empire around the world; though I would suspect that is because they either did not live through it at all or lived only under the more beneign rule toward the end of empire. Whether the Indians who lived through the great rebellion and it's aftermath would have missed the empire if they had lived to see Indian independence is another story...
I think the truth is that since the days of Rome (even earlier I should think) empires have been like a kind of great machine; they can produce incredible things, but they still chew people up and spit them out. Some clouds just had more silver in their lining than others.

[Attrition]

All states are gangster and empires are more gangster than states.