Talk:British Empire/Archive 3

message: I am very uncomfortable with this anachronistic dubbing of the British Empire as a superpower. In its heyday it was just one of the great powers and was certainly not head and shoulders above countries such as France. It competed on equal terms with many other countries in the scramble for Africa, had to play the Great Game and couldn't wrap up the first world war against a country in its first few decades of life. The term superpower was specifically coined to describe the emergence of the United States and the Soviet Union from this old world order and to emphasise the shift that he occurred. Surely it's a mistake to project it backwards? --Mr impossible 11:53, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. Do you think that perhaps it would be better to describe it as the world's first global power?! Jooler 22:24, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Brilliant and duly done. --Mr impossible 14:58, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text:  Still, the Wikipedia article insists on referring to Britain in the 19th century as "the world's sole developed superpower", which in my opinion is a wrong concept. Britain has never been the dominant power in Europe, neither in political nor in military terms. Instead, the continent was characterized by a multipolar equilibrium where Britain and France were probably the two powers with the greatest global reach (as a result of their large colonial empires and cultural importance), but several regional empires like Austria-Hungary, Russia, and later Germany were also major players. On the other hand, as it has been already pointed out, ideas  such as  the notion of a country being a "superpower" or "developed" (as opposed to "underdeveloped") are post-WWII concepts that do not apply to the 19th-century world.
Britain was number 1 at more or less all times, France occasionally looked threatening but Britain in the 19th century was as powerful as America today in comparison to other nations if not moreso.
Anyway, the article says sole developed super power- meaning the only nation that is developed and is a super power. There were other powers (though not in the league of Britain) i.e. France, Russia, etc... and other develoepd nations i.e. Belgium though none with both.
Developed and underdeveloped apply to the 19th century, they meant different things to today though they apply to which nations were industrialised and which not. --Josquius 20:28, 14 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Superpower 

message: Hello, I have noticed a glaring error on the map that shows the extent of the British Empire in 1921, as well as the map showing all the territories ruled from 1770 to 1948. The error in these 2 maps is that one of the countries that was never a part of the British Empire -- Nepal -- has been colored red in both maps! While Nepal was involved in a war with Britain that it lost, it was not a part of the British Empire at any time. For the geographically challenged, Nepal is the nation to the north and center of India. I hope this mistake will be recognized and fixed soon!172.144.221.36 03:36, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Accuracy of the Maps 

message: Is there a list of all British overseas territories ever existed or this is it? I would like to see this expanded to include status of each that shows the evolution from colonies to independent countries, not just any the extent of the Empire at a given point of history. I wouldn't mind doing it or should I start a new article just for it? This list will be quite bulky. I propose to name it "Former and Current British Territories Overseas" such that it would not be confuse with the proper terminology of British Overseas Territories. This list will include territories of all status, colonies, possessions, dependencies etc. --Kvasir 13:33, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Expansion on former British territories 

message: I have a great doubt regarding the claim that "The British Empire was the world's first global power", since already in the 16th century there were at least 2 world powers, Spain and Portugal, both of them ruled over possesions in all continents.
In fact Spain and Portugal come under the same rule from 1580 to 1640 so their common sovereigns ruled "an empire were the sun never sets" long before the British.
(This statement was in fact invented by the Spanish)
This empire comprised in rough terms (the same you use to descrive the British Empire)
Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sicily, the Netherlands(briefly)
The all of South America including Brasil and Paraguai (Portuguese)
Central America and most of the caribean islands
What is now Mexico, Florida, California, Texas and several other US territories
Most of the western coast of Africa
Posesions in North Africa and in the estern coast of Africa
the Philippine Islands
Many Possesions in India
Several other possesions in the Indian area -- anon - (81.193.176.222)
We all know about that though their actual control over these areas was limited and compared to Britain at its height their military strength was very much lacking. Britain was a super power during the age of globalisation so is a global power whilst the Spaniards and Portugese were just European powers. --Josquius 10:06, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "First" global power? 

message: Most of the British empire was not habitable land (Australian desert, most of Canada, Desert of Rajahstan, Kalahari Desert, Antarctic Peninsula, Arabian Desert, etc.), so saying that the British Empire covered 40% of the world's habitable land makes no sense at all. If you want to give a credible figure, you would have to calculate exactly how much of the British Empire was habitable, and then you would have to find out how much of the world exactly is habitable land (in 1921, which is a different number than in 2005), then you would have to divide the former by the latter. I don't think anyone can obtain these data, so in the meantime I am deleting this absurd and inflated 40% claim. Hardouin 12:04, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  40% of the world's habitable land 

message: I've removed the following text and reworded that paragraph:
other than Australia, which had not yet legally adopted the Statute of Westminster
This didn't make sense, because New Zealand, which had also not adopted the Statute of Westminster, did declare war separately. The connection between the Statute of Westminster and the need to declare war separately needs to be explained or omitted.
Ben Arnold 02:57, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably a weak and ambiguous connection, and probably best ignored for the purposes of this article. Peter Grey 04:11, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Australia not declaring war and the Statute of Westminster 

message: The British Empire installed white supremacist systems in Southern Africa, India and the Australian sphere. It was believed that the British gentleman was superior to the colored savages. Also, like many other colonial powers also did, the British used the 'divide and rule' policy in order to make ruling easier. Britain deliberately set Muslims and Hindus up against eachother in India to prevent any unification of those 2 groups against their colonial oppressors, the British.
http://www.atributetohinduism.com/European_Imperialism.htm
Also, there seems to be no mention of the fact that most of the land conquests of the British Empire would, in 21st century terms, be known as 'illegal occupations'.
The British empire was not, as so many express in their POV's, a benevolent entity functioning to spread wealth, but rather, to remove wealth from the occupied territories and bring it back to Britain, but as said before, this was not different from what other colonial powers also.
:It did handle things better than Belgium. GraemeLeggett 07:08, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  no argument from me there, but Belgium is not the topic here --Marcel1975 23:20, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This was a bias held by almost all European governments at the time and since it was part of the context of the era, its mention would be misleading and unencyclopedic. It' like saying, "Abraham Lincoln was a racist." He was a racist, but since almost everyone in his professional and social circles were also what we would now call "racist", it's not notable. Wyss 23:30, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

text: Absolutely. "White supremacist" is a word for this century, and if transplanted onto attitudes of 200yrs ago is entirely misleading. Incidentally, a quick look at the history of the Indian subcontinent before and after 1948, and indeed before 1750, is required before blaming the British for inter-religious strife. DJ Clayworth 18:27, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

text: "Also, there seems to be no mention of the fact that most of the land conquests of the British Empire would, in 21st century terms, be known as 'illegal occupations'." - First, 'illegal' says who? International law? Such laws to my knowledge did not exist in the 19th C. There was nothing illegal about colonialism, it had existed in one way or another for centuries. Secondly, to judge historical events by today's values is bad history and, to me, does not have a place in an encyclopedia. - Johnbull 03:02, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

text: "British Oppression to prevent unification? You must mean the British rule of India that unified it, industrialised it and eventually allowed the creation of a Muslim state separate from the Hindus? White Supremacy isn't applicable 200 years ago, a point at which most Indians were living in backwards, rural villages. White Supremacy is a political term contrasting politicised whites to politicised blacks. These Indians were originally no more politicised than indigenous peoples in Africa, Australia and the Americas. Also, if we were judging by 21st century terms, 1920s Southern USA was a human rights fiasco; i.e., you can't compare governments of 100 years ago or even 50 years ago to the morals of today. Different pragmatics, different situations, different beliefs.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Locuteh (talk • contribs) 12:37, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why no mention of white supremacy as an official policy 

message: Shouldn't there be some information here about how India was conquered?  Or some description of the Raj?  Its seems oddly absent. --JW1805 05:07, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps you should refer to India being brought under British rule as opposed to being conquered. Not only is it a bit of a POV statement, I don't recall the ruling Princes of Indian provinces objecting overly to British rule, as it secured them from invasion by another province. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Locuteh (talk • contribs) 12:45, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  India? 

message: I haven't read this radical-left book, but it claims that British colonial policies contributed to massive famines that starved around 50 million people in India and China.  (Verifiable is the Bengali famine of 1943, which killed 4 million Indians).
  
Refer to http://www.atributetohinduism.com/European_Imperialism.htm
I'm not sure why British imperialism is supposed to have been "better" than Belgian or Portuguese.  The British contributed more to the concept of "white man's burden" and the colonial remapping and exploitation of Africa and Asia than any other global power IMO.  Britain indeed is one of the foremost constructors of the modern capitalist world and its infinite positive advancements in social terms, but not without massive bloodshed before its direct colonial control was relinquished.  Romantic visions of benign empire like Lawrence of Arabia, etc. are Hollywood fairy tales (entertaining, but still fiction).  Britain has bombed, gassed, starved, and enslaved millions of people, just like the other Western powers and virtually every empire in human history.  My point is let's not get overboard with "Pax Britannia" and "UK civilized the world" or other jingoistic assertions...try to balance the good with the bad of Empire. how is Lawrence of Arabia romantic, a fairytale or fiction? Bwithh 23:03, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Comparisons have to be contemporary. Anachronism (and revisionism) using modern standards plague a lot of history articles in Wikipedia. In this case the comparison with the Belgian rule of the Congo is used quite frequently to illustrate the difference between contemporaneous empires of the late 19th century. Famines were and are still widespread and have a variety of causes. We cannot "fix" them even now so any source that tries to blame an institution of the past for causing them and/or failing to remedy them is questionable. I've read this article several times over the last few years and I think it has improved a lot; For such a contentious subject it is quite balanced - if not quite yet "perfect". If you think something needs to be toned down then you can do it yourself. (Edit - that last sentence reads poorly - it is not supposed to be an imperative) Wiki-Ed 13:29, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Late Victorian Holocausts? 

message: http://www.atributetohinduism.com/European_Imperialism.htm 
What is this nonsense about a deal with Indian nationalists at the onset of WWII. Does nobody here know of the Quit India Movement. I hope somebody will please correct this.
Jai Sri Rama! User:Rama's Arrow
:What "nonsense" are you referring to exactly? WW2 started in September 1939. The article you linked to starts in August 1942. Wiki-Ed 14:07, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deal with India?  

message: I do object to Scotland being included under as being part of the Kingdom of England from 1603 - 1707.  Scotland was in a personal union with England sharing a Monarch.  However by placing this fact under the heading of Kingdom of England, suggests that Scotland was somehow part of that Kingdom.  The reverse could be argued considering that the shared monarch was a Scot from the Scottish dynasty and not the English dynasty.  However, that also wouldn't necessarily be true.  Instead this should possibly be placed under the heading of the Kingdom of Great Britain.  Since that was the self styled, non official, name given to the kingdom by James VI.  In no way was Scotland part of the Kingdom of England within the dates you suggest. 
I'm new to Wilkpedia so I apologise if I haven't followed any formal procedures in pointing out mistakes etc User: Japanesewhispers 13:39 5 December 2005 (Tokyo)
:Hi.  Did you look at the rest of the stuff in that section?  The section is entitled 'Personal unions', and also includes the unions with places like the Netherlands.  It in no way implies that Scotland was part of the Kingdom of England.  Morwen - Talk 17:14, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. The bits on the Dutch provinces were similarly deleted recently by someone who failed to understand the concept of personal union.  --Kvasir 07:00, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Personal Unions: Kingdom of England 

message: Because of some shennanigans over the last few day, the text now refers to 1921 whilst the image refers to 1919, with Afghanistan included. Were there any significant additions between 1919 and 1921? Jooler 10:41, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Zenith 1919 or 1921?