Why is there so little appreciation for the British Empire...

Why is there so little appreciation for the British Empire, compared to other huge empires that influenced the world like Rome?

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Memes basically.

Look at us now, we are a shadow of our former self, we achieved many things, but our time has passed my friend.

Anglos spawned degeneracy, liberalism, and white guilt

Contrarian faggots cannot accept that the UK was influential.

Any form of "Well, we were good at one point!" is pretty frowned upon. Also, the history of the british empire isn't really interesting compared to others like Rome, Mongolia, and Persia

>It existed for a relatively short period of time
>Most of its former non-western colonies (western being America, Canada, Australia) are still shitholes (Egypt, India, Nigeria)
>GAVE UP ITS EMPIRE basically without a fight, having caved in to literally communists and traitors
>Is now, only ~70 years since giving up most of its possessions, a shadow of its former self and is barely holding on to its sovereignty

That's how I see at, at least

There is growing recognition of the importance of legal, financial and administrative institutions such as the rule of law, credible monetary regimes, transparent fiscal systems and incorrupt bureaucracies in encouraging cross-border capital flows. But how did the West European versions of such institutions spread as far and wide as they did?
In a few rare cases – the most obvious being that of Japan – there was a process of conscious, voluntary imitation. But more often than not, European institutions were imposed by main force, often literally at gunpoint. In theory, globalization may be possible in an international system of multilateral cooperation, spontaneously arising as Cobden envisaged. But it may equally well be possible as a result of coercion if the dominant power in the world favours economic liberalism. Empire – and specifically the British Empire – is the instance that springs to mind.
Today, the principal barriers to the optimal allocation of labour, capital and goods in the world are, on the one hand, civil wars and lawless, corrupt governments, which together have condemned so many countries in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia to decades of impoverishment; and, on the other, the reluctance of the United States and her allies to practice as well as preach free trade, or to devote more than a trifling share of their vast resources to programmes of economic aid. By contrast, for much (though certainly, as we shall see, not all) of its history, the British Empire acted as an agency for imposing free markets, the rule of law, investor protection and relatively incorrupt government on roughly a quarter of the world. The Empire also did a good deal to encourage those things in countries which were outside its formal imperial domain but under its economic influence through the ‘imperialism of free trade’. Prima facie, therefore, there seems a plausible case that the Empire enhanced global welfare – in other words, was a Good Thing.

Many charges can of course be levelled against the British Empire; they will not be dropped in what follows. I do not claim, as John Stuart Mill did, that British rule in India was ‘not only the purest in intention but one of the most beneficent in act ever known to mankind’; nor, as Lord Curzon did, that ‘the British Empire is under Providence the greatest instrument for good that the world has seen’; nor, as General Smuts claimed, that it was ‘the widest system of organized human freedom which has ever existed in human history’. The Empire was never so altruistic. In the eighteenth century the British were indeed as zealous in the acquisition and exploitation of slaves as they were subsequently zealous in trying to stamp slavery out; and for much longer they practiced forms of racial discrimination and segregation that we today consider abhorrent. When imperial authority was challenged – in India in 1857, in Jamaica in 1831 or 1865, in South Africa in 1899 – the British response was brutal. When famine struck – in Ireland in the 1840s, in India in the 1870s – the response was negligent, in some measure positively culpable. Even when the British took a scholarly interest in oriental cultures, perhaps they did subtly denigrate them in the process.
Yet the fact remains that no organization in history has done more to promote the free movement of goods, capital and labour than the British Empire in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. And no organization has done more to impose Western norms of law, order and governance around the world. To characterize all this as ‘gentlemanly capitalism’ risks underselling the scale – and modernity – of the achievement in the sphere of economics; just as criticism of the ‘ornamental’ (meaning hierarchical) character of British rule overseas tends to overlook the signal virtues of what were remarkably non-venal administrations.

What have the British done?

>industrialized
>forced a bunch of brown people to do stuff at gunpoint

And that's it. Same as half the other "empires" of that era.

Buttbattered Euros and Yanks.

>Why is there so little appreciation for the British Empire,

Try going to Africa and asking that question. Other Europeans don't rate Britain, but the lands the British ruled often miss them and nearly universally hold their Empire in considerable awe.

Here at Veeky Forums we're more interested in tragic empires than the ones that successfully winded down.

This.

I mean everyone on this board speaks English while making jokes about them.

Because the British Empire and all the 19th Century Colonial empires coincided with the rise of Nation States.

Not to mention European colonial empires face the historiopgraphic Post-Colonial onslaught of two ways of thinking
>Liberal, Democratic line that believes in self-determination of nations.
And
>Marxist-Communist thinking.

So European Colonial Powers are shit out of luck and will remain remembered as bad guys by shitloads of their erstwhile colonial subjects in the near future.

Because it's more fun to shit all over the eternal anglo and trigger them into eternity at the idea that in our lifetime the remains of the British Empire is going to be fucking laughable, for better or worse.

memes > prosperity of UK

God fuck the Queen

>mfw europoors can't handle the fact the queen is still sovereign of 1/3 of the human race

And the roman empire?
Arguably yes it lasted for more than 1000 years after the fall of its historic capitol it was primarily put the back burner of major medieval events ( rise of England and France, major crusade movements, recon quest of spain).
Arguably the same can be said for britain which is enjoying life in the shadow of russia, germany and the United states.
I find the reason why so many people idealize and fantasize over the roman empire is because of how easy it is generally to digest as a topic.
It was a large empire that primarily kept the same borders throughout most of is height onky loosing small fractions here and there. the military kept some sort of its regularity from the age of augustus to this reforms of diocletian and constantine.
While the history of the British Empire is so long and passes through so many great points in history that people find it much harder to peice tigether in one coherent interest rather than certain pieces.
A fan of medievel England and 19th century britain are not going to find complete similarities in their interest. While on the roman camp a person who is interested in turn of the millenia rome can find common ground with the person interested in the decaying roman empire of the 5th century.
In truth, and no offense to anybidy that loves roman history, the main reason the two empires share a different style of fan base is because roman imperial history follows somewhat the same way a story does with very easy to follow climaxes and declines. The stories of the emperors is a far easier tale to digest than the various acts and measures passed through Parliament.

>british

1 because it thrived in a romanticist zeitgeist instead of a noble era?
2 although it dominated in the lower arts (even some of those france and germany were superior) none of the high arts crossed the channel, that's a massive loss of prestige for an 'empire'
3 it was dwarfed by the following century of domination by its own former colony, the USA; USA was the one to actually make English the lingua franca

So it seems the reoccurring thread here is that it had too much neighbourly competition to be a great empire, its prestige comes from lower arts like industrialisation and colonialism. So to a degree the dominant culture was still France. So the British Empire was filler between Frankish Europe (which itself followed Italian Europe). Germany was at least good at being Frankish in that period, having many intellectual golden ages. The rise of the USA is a new paradigm in that it doesn't attempt to do European culture badly and provincially, instead it has its own values. You can see that by comparing things like popular music and hollywood (golden age if you're so easily triggered) to their origins.

Because it wasn't a 'Fuckin' ep*c germania romanum imperial spartan ultra epic rapid conquest fuelled empire' that all the cool casuals like

Say it with me.

B E A D Y
E
A
D
Y

During the height of empire any citizen could emigrate anywhere with no passport or visa.
I say bring the empire back

>Happens.
>Suddenly London has a population of one billion whilst large portions of Africa, Asia and the Caribbean have a population of zero.

Most overrated empire ever.

Because there is an air arrogance about the British where they still think that they are better than everyone else despite the current state of affairs, where nobody takes them seriously as they rant and rave about
>Muh empire
And
>Immigrants

They are too nice to everyone. How the fuck is it possible that shitholes like Scotland can have the right to vote for their independence it should be considered absolutly British core territory.

desu

Probably half that the rest of the world is still salty and half that Britain now is just sad. Remember Londoners, bikinis in advertisements are haram.

Did you lift this from a book/essay or is it yours?

I think that the question of whether or not the British Empire was a good thing is pretty interesting. They seemed to drag their subjects into the modern world, but at the same time they often did it by the throat and dropped them rather roughly once they were finished with them.

As an Australian I'm pretty happy with the British. Our legal system has worked out pretty well and since Abos weren't actively genocided we don't have too big a problem with that.

too soon m8, give it like another couple centuries

It's telling that no one besides the British fangirl over it

tl;dr the british state was a shit but the good wholesome capitalist merchants were great

By contrast to the immediate above, your opinion looks casual.

>bongs doing the Veeky Forums equivalent of a teenage girl fishing for compliments
Yes yes your empire was great once, you're not ugly, now go away.

Because it was nowhere near as glorious as Rome

Because that one German poster forced the BEADY and ETERNAL memes so hard that it stuck.

So memes suppress it.

t. Finnish britaboo

They fucked over a lot of people who are still here. There are still some butthurt greekniggers from when Rome took them over. Imagine how much butthurt there is from the Irish still left over.

Damn right the falklands are ours

God bless yer, ma'am.

The British Empire was turkroach tier. If the English Channel didn't exist England would be known as Northern France.

CHAT SHIT

GET BANGED

the queen isn't the sovereign of India though :^)

Centuries of being perfidious. Nearly every country from America to Argentina to Ireland to France to Germany to Russia to Japan has at least one reason to dislike them.

Not Old enough yet

I love when people continuously post this image despite it being comprehensively disproven a multitude of times. Really allows me to filter out the opinions of the historically illiterate.

Romans took over other fighting nations with same level of fighting technology. Brits fought unfair wars , guns vs spears/swords and claim they are strong,

Because backstabbing, perfidious albion doesn't deserve it

>USA was the one to actually make English the lingua franca

Worst meme

English wouldn't be lingua franca If it weren't the United States picking up the torch after WW2

English wouldn't be lingua franca If It weren't for the United Kingdom carrying the torch for decades prior to WW2

They were both vital parts of It's development

>still forcing this meme

This is the only correct answer.

Name any colonial empires that is remembered fondly and with awe by its erstwhile colonial subjects.

You cant.

Shoo
Shoo

Because we're currently living in a world absolutely dominated by the Anglosphere created by Britain and continuously forced by America. Anybody not part of the Anglosphere is obviously going to be upset by this because their historical conquests and contributions slowly fade away into irrelevancy.

The French especially will literally NEVER accept that no matter how many wikipedia articles they link showing epic battles from 300 years ago, nobody actually cares except the people on this board, those studying history and those who are actually French.

Nobody cares about those times you blew the fuck out of Britain.
Nobody cares about that period of history where you were the dominant European power.
Nobody cares that WE WUZ AN EMPIRE.

I mean jesus christ, nobody even cares about Britain anymore so if we're that low down on the relevancy chart can you imagine how low France is or Italy?

America's cultural dominance in the 21st century is literally a default win for Britain and anybody else who speaks English and shares the ideals. The very fact that anybody who wants to reply to this post needs to do so in English is glorious because I've never felt the need to learn a pointless language like French or German.

Slowly, slowly their children grow up consuming American media and forgetting who they are.

Finally I'll leave you with a reminder to pre-order Battlefield 1 for your kids so they can play as the heroic British and American forces freeing Europe from the big bad Germans!!1

French forces in WW1? Never heard of them, probably didn't do much anyway.

Its boring that's why , the empire was basically killing inferior people an that got them rich.

Well as far as I know the British had the largest world Empire in history so I think it gets plenty of appreciation from regular historians. But this is Veeky Forums so you're likely looking in the wrong place.

We all know that you're obsessed with the French beyond reason, Nigel
But OP asked for the board in general
I seriously doubt this board is made of Frenchmen only

>What did the Romans ever do for us?

>English wouldn't be lingua franca If It weren't for the United Kingdom carrying the torch for decades prior to WW2

Except French was still the lingua franca before WW2
In fucking WW1, at the height of Britain's power, German diplomats adressed to British ones in French ("chiffon de papier")

But eh, maybe by "carrying the torch" you meant spreading it to Sudan and Zimbabwe...

The Brits were fighting over European countries for these colonies though

see 7 year war with France, When France lost it also lost it's North American land

Indians also had guns you know

Think of it like Britain loosened the jar lid and the US opened it

>including French and German land gained temporarily during war but lost when they ultimately lost the war.

Might as well include land won in France during the 100 years war

Not really
Britain's only contribution in English becoming the dominant language was losing a war to France in 1783 so the country that would later make English the international language could be born

There were no "land won in France during the 100 years war"
These lands were the ancestral lands of the French family that ruled England at the time
And they lost them all because they made the mistake of starting a war for more....using an army composed of Englishmen

>Britain's only contribution in English becoming the dominant language

i'm not the guy your arguing with or even British but you are a retard.

Because of the British Empire you have Australians, Indians, New Zealanders, Canadians, half of Africa, half of The Caribbean and numerous other small enclaves and isladns such as Malta and Gibraltar all speaking English

That's without even mentioning USA

You are just anti British, admit it

fair enough

that pic is still wrong to include France and German territorial gains during a war they lost

You're the retard here if you think Australia, Canada, Africa or the Caribbean are the reason for English language's relevance

Before WW2, English was only spoken within the British Empire and therefore irrelevant as fuck on the international (British Empire being one nation) stage
Post-WW2 American domination is what spread it to the most advanced nations as second language (initially Western Europe and East Asia, and then eventually even South America, Eastern Europe and the rest)

But what about the pic of Germany right below that includes territorial gains in a war they lost as well?
Or does British obsession targets France only?

Them and the French.

why isn't Denmark included in the Nazi Germany map?

That's thanks to american hegemony though. This website was created in the USA, not Britain. English was not the lingua franca during the prime of the british empire outside it's borders. French or german were just as important if not more prestigious.

Is that what brits believe? All those peoples would be speaking english today even if the UK had not introduced it there. Sweden was never part of the british empire and they watch TV in english. Even in nations like Iran kids learn english at school.

What did they disprove, exactly?

>Egypt, India, Nigeria

2 richest African countries

and India

>Egypt

I wouldn't call it a shithole at all

>2 richest African countries
And two utter shitholes full of terrorism

>and India
Do I really need to say anything?

You ignore most of my post which talks about high culture, obviously by definition the most important parts of culture (maybe not to the average person, but again, to the highest people by definition) and then call one of the facts I use a "meme", despite it being completely true culturally. You got proved wrong by the people that replied to you, and that is miraculously bad arguing considering that all you had to do was insist on your lowly rabble-think point that the language originated with the Brits and they had the best colonial empire. How could you fuck that up? You should look into the history of things like Greek and Aramaic.

I don't understand what kind of cognitive dissonance would allow you to read through 3 important points and probably the whole post but then centre all your attention on a minor point of contention. Lowly, as I said.

I mean it's not really that short

If you take the initial colonisation of America as the start of the Empire it lasted about 350 years

It's no Rome but that's pretty good

Read the post you replied to retard

If you are going to learn a second language, it will be English

Why?

Because if you know English you can visit the following countries

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_territorial_entities_where_English_is_an_official_language

USA has done wonders for the English language through hollywood and media, but saying hurr durr Britain had nothing to do with English becoming the world number 1 language is moronic and you know it

read

No, you're just deluded

If you are going to learn a second language, it will be English
Why?
Because if you know English you can visit pretty much any country on Earth thank to the US making it the international language

because it was made by a child

Nothing. Its just a butthurt Anglo get his panties in a twist over the fact Brits have never ruled or held sovereignty over any major territory or nation in mainland Europe.

and what form of english do the swedes learn?

british english

checkmate yankcunts

and why do Americans speak English?

British Empire

really confused what this argument is about now

Yeah, but if you're gonna attribute yourself indirect achievments like that, everyone can do the same

And were Americans able yo spread English?
Because France liberated them from Brits

And did Americans become a superpower?
Because Japan took them out of isolationism

Etc...

No learn British English, deluded bong
Ever played with a GameBoy Colour? Neither did I

American English is the international language

It includes territories gained in a war which was lost when the war ended with France and Germany.

And just saying 'natives, indians, abos' neglects that the colonial powers were fighting each other as well for these territories, Britain fought France, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain before they claimed the whole of Indian sub-continent for example.

Roman and Spanish maps are fine, Spanish was done more with marriages than conquest but still correct

>And were Americans able yo spread English?
>Because France liberated them from Brits

You are too stupid for this board

>France doesnt intervene in the US Revolution
>No USA
>Russia wins WW2 alone
>No US hegemony after WW2
>English never becomes the international language

Also sad how the goalposts move so rapidly. Apparently none of us pointing out the USA's essential contribution could be British ourselves, and apparently we were saying Britain had no contribution at all to it becoming dominant.

It's sad how someone can be too stupid to read your post properly, and then the infection just spreads.

Jealousy

Americans like the brits and don't usually think badly of its empire

You don't actually know very much about Rome, do you?

>Not to mention European colonial empires face the historiopgraphic Post-Colonial onslaught
Why wouldn't the exact same apply to any imperial conquest? Just because they aren't conquering "nations" or through capitalist means?

Yeah, on the contrary, Americans often overestimate the British Empire so they can feel good believing they defeated some epic superpower
In reality, the British Empire they defeated was small weak and pathetic (in orange on pic related)
The actual British Empire was built in the second half of the 19th century by conquering technologically backward people in Africa and Asia

Brits are boring rulers. They dont do anything but sit there at desks , scowl and collect taxes.

They don't even try to reeducate the natives in British ways. Fuck if I was some third world bumpkin I would appreciate knowing how to act British. The wankers did conquer the world at one point after all. And nothing bloody beats sodding british slang and hobnocking curse words.

They were the dominant nation at the time just 20 years earlier they beat the french and crippled them

The brits were still a factor though. The only empire it would have been worse to rebel against at this time was the Spanish. But the Spanish kept their colonial subjects in ignorance and confusion and Spanish ethnic officials stationed in the colonies didn't inbreed with the locals, keeping a racial caste system.

In North America the colonists were effectively British citizens from the outset, until they were treated as something other.

>by conquering technologically backward people in Africa and Asia

For resources that fueled them becoming the first industrialized nation on earth and a trade superpower.
There's nothing in the "Building an Empire Rulebook" that says you're only allowed to pick fair fights with opponents of equal strength. Very few empires did this, and when those of equal power did fight they usually suffered mutually.