Did Britain cause most of the worlds problems ?

[Doggett]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12992540

One for the history fans this.

No right or wrong answer. I just like to hear good, heated debate (before Andrew locks it).

[Hammock Rider]

George MacDonald Fraser has some interesting ideas on this in his book, The Lights's on at the Sign Post. Here's a pretty quick summary taken from an interview:

("I couldn't care bloody less who runs Afghanistan. It's their business. Not ours. We are no longer the world's policeman."), but if one theme permeates his work, it is a defensive nostalgia for Empire.
  "That's true," he says. "The socialist revisionists have said the Empire was a very evil thing, and that is the way the teaching is going. In fact, it was bloody marvellous. Without it, where would Australia be? There wouldn't be one. Or a Canada, or a United States. Okay, the British were pirates, but they did carry along with their buccaneering tendency a desire to improve things. They didn't always succeed, but they tried."
  The palpable embarassment that today's British middle classes feel, and teach, about their imperial past, vexes Fraser more than most of his vast menagerie of betes noire. He is especially infuriated by the modern vogue for governments issuing apologies for the actions of their predecessors, and defends this from a personal position which is difficult to broach

[The Gravekeeper]

Yes and no. While many conflicts today do stem from colonialism, Britain isn't entirely to blame. They weren't the only European nation to practice it, after all, and they certainly weren't the first. And while colonialism did bring some benefits, it seems to me that Mr Fraser here simply hasn't lived in a country where he sees the negative results of colonialism every day of his life.

Pros and cons to the whole thing, really. While the nations themselves have benefited from trade with each other, a shared language and shared customs, the indigenous peoples tended not to fare so well...

[lester1/2jr]

the arbitrary drawing of boundaries in the third world and imposition of western notoions of states has contributed to a fair amount of bloodshed.

[Flick James]

I am of the opinion that this will never be determined. First, there the reliability of history. It is certainly not absolute. Second, you have interpretation of history and that's just a mess when you consider that two people can look at the exact same historical evidence and somehow have the ability to draw two vastly different conclusions, each applying their own special set of biases.

[Zapranoth]

Shirley Bassey said it best.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-a5HTLDMWc

[Killer Bees]

That's a very interesting article.  It just goes to show you that there are upsides and downsides to everything.  And sometimes what works with one country doesn't work with another.

That's just life, really, isn't it?

[indianasmith]

By and large, I think the British did more good than harm in the world . . . they at least TRIED to give back some things, like lessons in self-government and the abolition of slavery (after 1832), as well as doing away with lot of evil, abusive systems (the suttee in India, and the caste system)  in the territories they colonized.  No, it didn't all work out.  But many of them did take the concept of "the White Man's Burden" seriously, and try to benefit and elevate the places they occupied.

Hats off to Great Britain, and my sincerest apologies for the brutal snubs inflicted on your leaders by the puling incompetent who currently occupies our White House.

[Rev. Powell]

the puling incompetent who currently occupies our White House.

Is that really necessary Indy? 

[Doggett]

the puling incompetent who currently occupies our White House.

Is that really necessary Indy? 

Ah, it's just Indy being Indy.

Let it fly, Rev. Let it fly...

[indianasmith]

It probably wasn't, but I was REALLY ticked at him earlier today.

And he did treat Gordon Brown VERY shoddily.

[RCMerchant]

Britain wasn't alone in it's expansionist policies. Spain,Portugaul,Germany, Russia,the United States (we didnt just walk into a unpopulated country,folks...this great land was inhabited)... practiced it as well. Some much more violently.
I don't recall mass genocide ever being practiced by the English.
To place the blame on the shoulders of any one nation is a lazy a cop out.

[lester1/2jr]

Its too bad Blair, or as your press more appropriately calls him Bleah, went along with Bush in Iraq. He maybe could have talked some sense into him though that would have been quite a feat. he could have tried.

A similar thing is happening to France now that Sarkozy has gotten bitten by the world stage bug. They've got this guy Bernard Henri Levi, he's sort of like the French version of Tom Freidman of Chris Hitchens, "intellectual" popular writer/ war monger. He helped push them into Libya.

Britain was definitely doing better before the 20th century than after it.

[Couchtr26]

By and large, I think the British did more good than harm in the world . . . they at least TRIED to give back some things, like lessons in self-government and the abolition of slavery (after 1832), as well as doing away with lot of evil, abusive systems (the suttee in India, and the caste system)  in the territories they colonized.  No, it didn't all work out.  But many of them did take the concept of "the White Man's Burden" seriously, and try to benefit and elevate the places they occupied.

Well said Indiana.  The bringing of their representative government and legal ideas benefited many places.  I think it wasn't so much the Empire that screwed things up but rather the hap hazard method of letting go of it that brought many problems.  Also, as you stated, there were problems but toward the end they did seem interested in trying to rectify them. 

[indianasmith]

Just for the record . . . Lester is wrong, as usual. Blair and Bush are heroes.

So there!