Historylet here. How did the British Empire some to be?

Historylet here

How did the British Empire some to be? Its a little rainy island in the Atlantic and somehow created a massive empire. Was it the social organization? Technology? Being good sailors?

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  1. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    It started off as a joke and it got a bit out of hand

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      yah, the Egnlish can take banter a little too far

      >highest density of coal deposits anywhere on earth
      >located at the periphery of Eurasia (like Japan, not a coincidence)
      >full access to everyone else's inventions and tech for 3000+ years
      >full protection from invaders and nomads
      >easy trade routes
      >gulf stream so climate is actually very temperate
      >fertile land
      >virtually no predators or relevant beasts that would inhibit growth or urbanization out of rural areas in prehistoric times

      I see, so it really just a great combination of ingredients

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >I see, so it really just a great combination of ingredients
        pretty much. Similar case with Japan

        I compare Britain and Japan so much because they both have similar histories and geographical placement with respect to the actual civilizations that existed for thousands of years.
        The fact that Japan and Britain are relevant today shows how temporary and crazy history is.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      The reason is of course tourism. Tourism had already started in the 16th century and favored density, and England had a lower temperature favoring density.
      As a result it got the best colonies and the rest of the world was left with whatever.
      All replies below are spam.

  2. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >highest density of coal deposits anywhere on earth
    >located at the periphery of Eurasia (like Japan, not a coincidence)
    >full access to everyone else's inventions and tech for 3000+ years
    >full protection from invaders and nomads
    >easy trade routes
    >gulf stream so climate is actually very temperate
    >fertile land
    >virtually no predators or relevant beasts that would inhibit growth or urbanization out of rural areas in prehistoric times

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >full access to everyone else's inventions and tech for 3000+ years

      This is the big one.
      People these days forget, myself included, but ENGHLAND used to be a center of manufacturing, industry, and technology, and it did so thanks to a background of subsuming and absorbing thousands of years of technology, art, and culture from the dozens of civilizations it encountered. They took in everything that was exposed to them. Because they sure as shit didn't start off like that. The Romans who colonized the place spoke of the English as a short, round, stupid, swamp-dwelling people wot grew no cereals, ate mostly meat and butter, and went about in dressed in naught but body tattoos and furs or wool shawls.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        great points
        just goes to show how even the most primitive, backwards, poor people can eventually learn from their conquerers and become conquerers themselves. Not to say Europeans were all primitive or something. Just making a point that everyone starts from somewhere.

        Going forward, we shouldn't be surprised if a country that is poor today (but generally improving over time) becomes a very powerful entity in the next few hundred years.

        • 2 years ago
          Chud Anon

          >a country that is poor today (but generally improving over time) becomes a very powerful entity in the next few hundred years

          China

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >Going forward, we shouldn't be surprised if a country that is poor today (but generally improving over time) becomes a very powerful entity in the next few hundred years.
          This is a non-statement

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >just goes to show how even the most primitive, backwards, poor people can eventually learn from their conquerers and become conquerers themselves.

          If I had to add anything further that was intelligent:
          I remember reading that one of the great defining strengths of the various historically "conquered turn conqueror" people was how successful they were at reimagining themselves. Effectively, their ability to not see themselves as victims, and thus spurn the tools of their oppressors as a painful reminder, but to blatantly plagiarize everything about their master's and so to become great like them.
          It's kind of like how Rome was sacked by the Visigoths they had spent centuries raiding, pillaging, enslaving, and taxing, or how S. Korea and China were gutted and raped for two world wars by Japan- A country they had historically seen as irrelevant and described as "Submissive Midget Land".

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Also Britain has a fantastic ability of turning massive catastrophes into heroic failures

            >The charge of the light Brigade
            >1842 retreat from Kabul
            >Battle of Rourke's Drift - victory day after getting slaughtered at Battle of Isandlwana
            >General Gordon of Khartoum
            >Dunkirk
            >Operation Market Garden
            >Stalag Luft III officers escape (Great escape)

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            None of this is relevant to the construction of empire, people just like Romanticized stories.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Where did you read this? What book? This might stave off my suicide attempt

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            You were already told to have a nice day.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >they had spent centuries raiding, pillaging, enslaving, and taxing
            You are moronic

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >One quarter of the land
            Which was empty.
            >one quarter population of the planet
            Yeah all the Black folk and Indians that continue to make up exactly that much.

            Nice try Nigel.

            Why reply to a worthless thread.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >full access to everyone else's inventions and tech for 3000+ years
        He was talking about continental Europe the savages encountered from the colonies

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >The Romans who colonized the place spoke of the English
        >the Romans
        >the English
        chronology is somewhat off there dude

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      In addition to these I'd like to add something major you missed (though maybe "trade routes" covered it) is access to the Americas. One cannot overstate what an advantage having an entire continent of free resources (because it was emptied by disease) is. The New World is what jumpstarted industrialization and gave West Europe and England in particular the resources to conquer places that weren't conveniently emptied by disease.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        I don't think America was worth all that much. A lot of the colonizers were religious outcasts anyway.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >>full access to everyone else's inventions and tech for 3000+ years

      Lmao. IQfy thinks life is like a video game again

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        None of this is relevant to the construction of empire, people just like Romanticized stories.

        >The Romans who colonized the place spoke of the English
        >the Romans
        >the English
        chronology is somewhat off there dude

        >Was it the social organization? Technology? Being good sailors?
        Got lucky to land on all three of those and more.
        England was an urban society with good trade ties to mainland Europe, a very productive agricultural sector (possibly the most productive, on a per capita basis, in the entire world back in the 1700s), solid educational institutions, and a Parliament which after the 1600s was very stable and suited for modern governance and administration.
        They also, like the Netherlands, figured out Money Voodoo before the rest. So while the Bank of England managed state debt really well and was able to fund Britain's extensive wars and massive navy, the French and Spanish were tripping over themselves figuring out how to pay their debts without going bankrupt repeatedly. Never underestimate ability to fund debt.

        Why reply to such a worthless thread.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Make a 1:1 map of earth in Civ 6 and run it with easy AI vs hard AI. See if England still dominates.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        what the frick are you talking about lmao

        >>full access to everyone else's inventions and tech for 3000+ years

        Lmao. IQfy thinks life is like a video game again

        same morons different posts

  3. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Most of the Empire was just finders keepers (Canada, Australia, and Africa except Egypt). They only had to work for India, and their territories in the Middle East only lasted a few decades, and only being labeled as "mandates". The British Empire looks good on paper, but like the Monogls, they mostly conquered empty land, and for a very short period of time.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >mostly conquered empty land
      What?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Canada and Australia (half the landmass of the British Empire is empty). Also their African colonies were sparsely populated.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >they mostly conquered empty land
      One quarter of the land and one quarter population of the planet

      Least empty land empire ever

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >One quarter of the land
        More than half of it was literally empty (Canada, Australia, and a large portion of Africa).
        >one quarter population of the planet
        You mean India.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >One quarter of the land
        Which was empty.
        >one quarter population of the planet
        Yeah all the Black folk and Indians that continue to make up exactly that much.

        Nice try Nigel.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Australia was not finders keepers. Australia was discovered by the Dutch in the early 1600s. They didn't bother. The VOC also strangled the growth of their settler population in the cape and NL had few people plus they landed in Western Australia which sucks. France tried exploring it with La Perouse who landed in Sydney but by then the UK was already setting up shop. The UK displayed the most initiative in the South Pacific, had multiple reasons to try and go there, and had the human, economic and geopolitical potential necessary to do it.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        It still doesn't change the fact that is was swiftly conquered because the population was less than primitive. No opposition whatsoever in Australia and Canada. That's half the empire's land mass.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Only like 1% of Australia or Canada has any actual settlement.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      This true. Conquering lands from primitive apes is an achievement to christcucks lmao. Everytime they faced a strong European empire they ran to their shitty rainy island and got someone else to fight their wars for them like the little warmonger israelites they are

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      You’re insane if you think South Africa was by any means an easy acquisition. You also don’t see the months if not years of high level diplomacy involved with making sure other colonial powers don’t sperg out themselves

  4. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Bring good at sailing. Also great at cutting costs and compression of ruling structures later on. Basically you know that episode of Futurama where Hermes optimized a mine so well it only needed one Aussie? Kinda like that.

  5. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    [...]

    thanks, thats a great write-up

    Bring good at sailing. Also great at cutting costs and compression of ruling structures later on. Basically you know that episode of Futurama where Hermes optimized a mine so well it only needed one Aussie? Kinda like that.

    No, I have never seen it but I will watch it right now

    >I see, so it really just a great combination of ingredients
    pretty much. Similar case with Japan

    I compare Britain and Japan so much because they both have similar histories and geographical placement with respect to the actual civilizations that existed for thousands of years.
    The fact that Japan and Britain are relevant today shows how temporary and crazy history is.

    I'll have to learn more about Japan as well. I know samurai and thats all lol

  6. 2 years ago
    Anonymous
  7. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Genetics. Anglos have the highest genius per capita. Technology, culture, institutions, organization. None of those things come from thin air, they are emergent properties of genetics.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      then how come Anglos didn't invent anything of note for 95% of their history? How come they didn't even have a written history until the Romans conquered and raped them?
      Not to hate on Anglos. But dude, you must be trolling or baiting to use the "muh IQ" argument lol

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        English bloody code was more eugenic than the Hajnal line. Eugenics works.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        There were more inventions in the last 200 years than all of history than the entirety of what came before

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >then how come Anglos didn't invent anything of note for 95% of their history
          Anglos have probably invented more than everyone else combined

          "95%" completely made up figure

          Anglo society became more IQ-elastic leading up to the industrial revolution.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >then how come Anglos didn't invent anything of note for 95% of their history
        Anglos have probably invented more than everyone else combined

        "95%" completely made up figure

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Anglo society became more IQ-elastic leading up to the industrial revolution.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        They did all that in just 5% of their history?
        Props to them.

  8. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >Starts off as several commercial enterprises (Chartered companies)
    >These become very profitable to the crown/exchequer
    >Pirates
    >Royal Navy sent to defend these commercial interests
    >Tobacco in North America
    >Tea in China
    >China will only accept silver for tea and not any of Britain's manufactured goods
    >Silver reserves completely depleted
    >Opium
    >Force China to allow opium trade so Britain can balance its trade deficit
    >P&O shipping company profits from these trade routes
    >HSBC helps the opium merchants finance their operations and provides international banking facilities
    >Need sugar for tea
    >West Indies perfect environment to grow tea
    >Sugar plantations are extremely labour intensive
    >Trade rum, textiles, rifles and other manufactured goods with west Africans for slaves
    >Bessemer process
    >Industrial revolution
    >Railway boom across entire planet
    >Britain has the best trains and engineers in world
    >this lead to football(also cricket, rugby, polo, hockey and horse racing) spread around the globe due to British railway workers
    >East India company's company rule gets out of hand and the British government have to take over operations in India at major cost to the exchequer
    >British financial services become the most experienced around the world with the largest commercial network
    >The Royal Navy control several of the worlds shipping "choke points" - English canal Gibraltar, Suez canal, Cape of good hope, Strait of Malacca, Bab-el-Mandeb
    >Cecil Rhodes in Southern Africa - Diamonds and gold
    >DeBeers, BP, Rio Tinto
    >Rubber, tin, lumber in the far east colonies - Burma & Malaya
    >Oil in middle eastern
    >Common law system introduced to colonies
    >British civil service style government administration introduced to colonies
    >English is taught
    >Competing with other great powers
    >The Great game in Central Europe with Russia
    >Britain ultimately comes out on top
    >Pax Britannica
    TL;DR Private interests that needed state military support sometimes needed to be nationalised

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >common law system introduced to colonies
      >imperial units
      The most egregious crimes against humanity inflicted by the British.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        What d'ya mean what's so complicated about

        >chain = 22 yd or 66 ft - 100 links, 4 rods, or 1⁄10 of a furlong. The distance between the two wickets on a cricket pitch.

        Simples
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_units#Units

        Also money

        >Pound divided into twenty shillings or 240
        >The shilling was subdivided into twelve pennies
        >The penny was further sub-divided into two halfpennies or four farthings
        >2 farthings = 1 halfpenny
        >2 halfpence = 1 penny (1d)
        >3 pence = 1 thruppence (3d)
        >6 pence = 1 sixpence (a 'tanner') (6d)
        >12 pence = 1 shilling (a bob) (1s)
        >2 shillings = 1 florin ( a 'two bob bit') (2s)
        >2 shillings and 6 pence = 1 half crown (2s 6d)
        >5 shillings = 1 Crown (5s)

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >measure the british empire in cricket pitches
          based ngl

  9. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    1 Billion British diaspora. What could’ve been.

  10. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Racial superiority.

  11. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    In a single word. Tea

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >the Americas rolling in wealth because slavery and plantations.
      I hate this meme. The North's manufacturing industries were worth more than the South's plantation industries. The plantations would have been more profitable than they were had they used wageslavery rather than the standard slavery. America does not owe its success to slavery.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous
  12. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    They did it to dab on the french and Spanish at dinner parties.

  13. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Spain was a potato brain shithole. They had an inquisition into the 19th century and just pumped and dumped their colonies for mountains of silver. Latin America is a disorganised shithole because of the Spaniards. Spain literally sent millions of decrees to their colonies between 1492 and the 19th century. They didn't even let people born in the colonies hold the highest administrative posts. Their empire was based on religion and coercion, the power of Christ compels u

    The UK on the other hand had real commerce, smart political maneuvering and negotiations with local rulers, an empire based on commerce rather than plunder, a legal system that actually works and even when their colonies rebelled because they were intentionally strangling their economy so British hat makers weren't outcompeted by Philadelphian ones that breakaway colony was just England 2 anglo institutions boogaloo. The fact they even had a settler society like that puts them above Spain or France who left a few crillo oligarchs and inbred fur trappers. Some of the stuff in the US Constitution about a speedy trial and right to not incriminate yourself is even in the levellers' agreement of the people in the civil war. Anglo society had capitalism, enclosures, the agricultural revolution, Spain was a shithole where you had to let sheep going down paths graze your adjecent lands because the government of Spain made money off wool. The UK was just the best empire of its day and most effectively took advantage of the agricultural scientific and industrial revolutions of the time along with changes in philosophy and politician science

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >an empire based on commerce rather than plunder,
      India and China were violently plundered.

  14. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    British cities had no walls. Compared to italian and german cities with walls. Which meant cities could grow as much as they needed. Also there was constant competition between power groups which were balanced (nobles vs burghers) (rural vs urban). This created a sitution where both groups gave a little to get what they want and competition was good.

    Other than rose wars or whatever it was called there wasnt any devastation.

    Most important factor of industralation was actually relation between cheap fuel and expensive labor. This combination created innovation. Reverse was the case in china where fuel was expensive and labor was cheap. This patern can also be seen furnace sizes. Chinese furnaces were large energy efficent meanwhile british used small ones.

  15. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    We're an island so the navy became a big priority in the Tudor times. Turns out having the best navy in the world also means you can dominate the world.

  16. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    I'm gonna split the British Empire into three seperate, incredibly broad "Chunks" here.

    America/Other settler colonies: America didn't have a large population base that was able to resist the encroachment of European settlers in general (In the areas the British colonised in north America), the populations that did exist were technologically outmatched due to British industrial processes, the metropole was able to diffuse social tension from radical protestants by offering them a life in the colonies, with expansion being incentivised by the prospect of free land, and with it, exploitable resources, this eventually grew a powerbase that local American powerholders used to cast off British control after Britain had sought to centralise the relationship by deincentivising western expansion in order to sure up native allies, and engaging in actions to increase taxation (which previously was incredibly lax, with tax evasion being common), we can see this in how the NA colonies actually went, Canada, with a lower population base, and less local powerholders didn't cast their lot in with the rebelling American states, after this Britain had less emphasis on centralization in Imperial politics, granting Canada elected local powerbases, and eventually responsible government (basically huge amounts of autonomy in local economic affairs in exchange for certain duties, like engaging in imperial preferential trade, and being unable to engage parts of international diplomacy, like declaring war autonomously (although with natives, there was a lot of leeway as i understand it) )

    All of the settler colonies of Britain have one thing in common: A lack of population density of the initial inhabitants, after a dash of genocide, America was open for colonization, the same applied in Australia, Canada, and to a lesser extent, NZ (which explains why, say, Tasmanians were completely exterminated, and the Maori were not)

    1/?

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Aus and NZ also had something else prompting their colonisation as settler colonies, Rival colonial powers (mostly the Dutch and French) able to jeopardize the crown israeliteel of India by controlling territory in Oceania, which would've allowed for Naval incursion into the lucrative trade in the south pacific.

      This is also why New Zealand is called that, Zeeland is a province within the Netherlands, and the area was anglicised from the name a Dutch cartographer had given it.

      Anyway, post-American revolution, Britain held onto to it's developing settler colonies through the policy i'd mentioned earlier, of responsible government (autonomy in local affairs), basically every reason the Americans had to leave was soothed by this policy, that was, it was soothed, until the breakdown of international relations that caused the first and second world wars had spilled Canadian, Australian and Kiwi blood, prompting the Dominions (a position created to distinguish between these colonies and the colonies in Africa/India) to sever the ties that bound them to the metropole, giving them independent foreign policies and allowing them more control over international trade (although the latter really was more of the British shying away from Imperial trade after the second world war, accepting the liberal trade world order of the ascendant united states)

      South Africa was the black sheep of this group, having been established by the VOC in order to ensure ships could pass to modern day Indonesia, the India of the Dutch colonial empire (as a result of being locked out of food by natives pissed off at them, dutch settlers were brought in), an invasion of the Dutch metropole lead to a pro-french faction being installed in the first of France's sister republics, the batavian republics, and from exile in Britain, the Stadtholder (prime minister, as i understand it) ordered all loyal colonial governors to surrender to the British.

      2/?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        So, the governor surrenders to the British after initially refusing, and for the rest of the Napoleonic wars, the Cape is controlled by the British, and afterwards, there's tensions between the local dutch who move inland to get away from them, and British settlers brought into, as far as i can tell, to replace the now missing dutch (at this point diverging into modern boers)

        So SA, unlike the rest of the colonies was the usurpation of an existing colonial structure, one not encouraged by a lack of existing local populations, but as a matter of necessity in allowing ships to pass through on the way to India, later it would be one of the constituents of the Union of South Africa, which would reincorporate the boers after the first and second boer war (the boers, having trekked inland establised their own countries), the Scramble for Africa solidified the borders of Modern SA, far further inland than anything i've talked about here, SA's larger native population meant that in the face of the natives, Apartheid was created as a method of promoting white unity over the obvious loggerheads the Boers and British would otherwise be at, South Africa's unique in that it has a bit of an overlap in the three "chunks" of the Empire i'm proposing existed, and the two chunks it's part of are Africa, and the Settler colonies, South Africa was both, it was both a demographically African nation with a thin slice of white elites, while also containing white workers one would find hard to not call "local" if that term's to have any meaning at all.

        Despite the efforts of Apartheid to promote racial unity over nationalism of the boers, by the 60's, the dam broke, with South Africa becoming a republic, still operating under apartheid, this made South Africa more of a definitive divorce than the other Colonies.

        Next, i'll try and talk about Africa in the British Empire as i understand it.

        3/?

        The reason is of course tourism. Tourism had already started in the 16th century and favored density, and England had a lower temperature favoring density.
        As a result it got the best colonies and the rest of the world was left with whatever.
        All replies below are spam.

        quiet, spammer, i'm trying to effort post.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Your posts are utterly worthless and the reason is tourism.
          You are too dumb to see this obvious fact and will continue with your spam.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Africa in the British empire (and in the story of European colonialism in general) has two phases, small coastal forts and positions used for supplying ships and trading with locals for valuable commodities like slaves and gold, which were able to be established due to the mutually beneficial relationship (manufactured goods like textiles were traded for said slaves and gold), and then a huge expansion after the Congo conference, which broadly split Africa between the dominant European powers (done in order to diffuse conflicts between the powers of Europe at home).

          So i'll use an example because i reckon that'll help me illustrate my point, Ghana, British control of Ghana starts with merchants setting up local forts on the coast, eventually these are coalesced into the gold coast colony in order to defend against the local Ashanti, and the Ashanti were incorporated into the British Empire later (with difficulty), with the Ashanti Crown colony retaining local legal institutions like their monarchy in exchange for economic rights on their land.

          The reason Britain was able to take the Ashanti is a bit of a chicken and egg thing, the Ashanti had a large population, but their social organization was massively hampered, unlike in Britain, where industrialisation had massively shifted society, the need for agricultural workers had declined through the production of labour saving devices, this video of a century old Irish farmer in 1965 discusses this point:

          For the Ashanti, land was distributed more equally than in Britain, see pic related, it's from a paper named Economic Forms in Pre-Colonial Ghana (1970), this meant that unlike in Britain, wherein the bourgeoise were able to effectively seize the reigns of the country and put it towards their benefit (which meant development to the benefit of capital, which in turn created more industrial processes, which reinforced itself).

          4/?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            This is not a effort post, this is just Wikipedia level information plus making stuff up.
            >For the Ashanti, land was distributed more equally than in Britain, see pic related
            Pretty bullshit cite. Nobody can find a eviction before 2015 and capitalism is literally morons.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            The liberal revolution and it's consequences couldn't have happened in the Ashanti Empire, because the basis of the revolution, (hard pressed bourgeois excluded from supreme power by an vestigial aristocracy) didn't exist in the Ashanti Empire.

            I think the key thing in understanding European colonialism comes from this, Britain wasn't a "rainy little isle" by the time of African colonisation, it was already the beating heart of a world spanning empire, and an industrial behemoth, it had become an industrial behemoth because it sat on incredibly useful material in coal, and because it, earlier than the rest of Europe, had hashed out the conflict between bourgeoise and aristocracy in the English civil war, it had become the head of a world spanning empire through India.

            5/?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            > on incredibly useful material in coal
            No, this is wrong. British income was about $1,000 in 1800.
            Each tourist produces $20,000 of gdp. Tourism was about 1% of today and gdp was also 1%.
            Coal is worthless, many of the coal mining areas are poor.
            Tourism is the only reason and your post is spam.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            I'm going to start with India by talking about something that happened very shortly after Indian independence.

            This is a picture of the last Nizam of Hyderabad, one of the wealthiest men of all time, "India" as a unified nation really did not exist prior to British colonisation.

            I'm giving up now, basically, India comprised of smaller kingdoms, making exploitation easier to accomplish, frick it.

            > on incredibly useful material in coal
            No, this is wrong. British income was about $1,000 in 1800.
            Each tourist produces $20,000 of gdp. Tourism was about 1% of today and gdp was also 1%.
            Coal is worthless, many of the coal mining areas are poor.
            Tourism is the only reason and your post is spam.

            Yes, Spain is a very powerful and rich economy, i have no choice but to submit and become your vassal

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >"India" as a unified nation really did not exist prior to British colonisation.
            pretty common misconception. there were 2-3 famous Indian empires which controlled almost the entire subcontinent. Indians had a name for their subcontinent thousands of years before the british showed up. Indians mapped and explored their subcontinent before christ was born.

            >India comprised of smaller kingdoms, making exploitation easier to accomplish
            Sorta. The British spent the better part of 200 years basically lying to and backstabbing different players in the Indian subcontinent. It took them literally decades to get a real foothold in India and they were very close to losing it several times.
            And even after they exploited India, they weren't able to conquer it, proper. Most of the british Raj consisted of indirectly ruled provinces or states, surrounded by autonomous Princely states which paid some head tax to the british but otherwise did whatever.

            It's not surprising, then, that the Kingdom of Mysore had electrification and better infrastructure, higher GDP per capita, and an actual industry than the intentionally undeveloped British Raj ruled indirectly by Brits.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            The actual reason is tourism. But you're mentally moronic and will keep spamming.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            I meant "unified nation" in the sense of national identity, empires had taken large swathes of India, but it's my understanding that the ethnogenesis of "Indian" was in the shared struggle all had endured under British Rule (although events like the assassination of Ghandi and contemporary Indian nationalists focus way more on an exclusionary religious basis), which came about as more parochial leaders like Osman had been tainted in the public eye through serving as part of the big, corrupt tangle of administration that was the Raj before during and after company rule, Osman obviously has some extenuating factors considering the pretty big religious aspect in that he was a Muslim ruling a colossal, majority Hindu state.

            I was trying to build up to an eventual point that the British Empire, wherever it went, didn't operate as we might understand an older empire like Rome, replacing local institutions entirely and gutting local powerbases completely, the British Empire, even in areas that were literally populated by British settlers was characterised by a constant juggling act of granting autonomy and the suppression of locals, i got discouraged by that spamming moron, the maps we see of colonial empires (like OP's) dissolves all the nuance of how these empires actually functioned.

            Honestly it's probably good i didn't try and break it down, my knowledge of British colonialism in Africa was already pretty shaky and my knowledge of Indian colonialism came down to knowing a few key events and trying to extrapolate, i was drawing on "the decline and fall of the British empire", and i think that in breaking down the Empire into 3 different chunks of directly settled territory, Africa, and India, i left out smaller colonies like Singapore, Cyprus or Malta, both of which to my understanding were basically just served as Naval bases in order to facilitate trade.

  17. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    boats

  18. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >How did the British Empire some to be?
    They got lucky and puppeted Bengal when India encountered a power vacuum. The rest looks big, but outside of India, the Levant, and Nigeria, most of their land was barren and sparsely-inhabited.

  19. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    corporate mercantilism

  20. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    One answer : France.

    France destroyed Spain and the Netherlands, that were the two traditionnal naval rivals of UK. Then, with 1815 and France under the Treaty of the Holly Alliance, UK had the hands free to colonize what she wanted and to take as much as land as possible until the rise of USA.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      You make yet another worthless reply, everything after 120 is spam.
      Truly the fact this thread is continuing to get replies is a testament to the total moronation of the board.

  21. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Strong navy, island makes you more resistant to invasion and a large slice of good luck.

  22. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    They had the technology to do so and the intelligence to persuade colonies obey the rule of law. Autonomy for various lands of the Empire was granted either through war or through diplomacy which allowed them to exist as prosperous nations without the influence of the crown, so as long as there wasn't a nasty, expensive war on that partnership remained secure for the economic benefit of everyone who owned property (who were at that time the only people who had power and were therefore important). Their good navy also made crossing the ocean at a time when planes didn't exist very much feasible. Many of the lands they took also had next to no opposition, which allowed a wealth of resources to funnel into the heart of the Empire and it gave birth to even more technology which they could use against places which did have opposition. They essentially got really, really lucky.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Worthless reply, everything after 120 is spam.
      All replies below are spam. All posters below are mentally moronic and have Down syndrome, and cannot read.
      All replies below are spam. All posters below are mentally moronic and have Down syndrome, and cannot read.
      All replies below are spam. All posters below are mentally moronic and have Down syndrome, and cannot read.

  23. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >Was it the social organization? Technology? Being good sailors?
    Got lucky to land on all three of those and more.
    England was an urban society with good trade ties to mainland Europe, a very productive agricultural sector (possibly the most productive, on a per capita basis, in the entire world back in the 1700s), solid educational institutions, and a Parliament which after the 1600s was very stable and suited for modern governance and administration.
    They also, like the Netherlands, figured out Money Voodoo before the rest. So while the Bank of England managed state debt really well and was able to fund Britain's extensive wars and massive navy, the French and Spanish were tripping over themselves figuring out how to pay their debts without going bankrupt repeatedly. Never underestimate ability to fund debt.

  24. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    jenny go brrrr

  25. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    literally by accident. royals in india became so dependent on british force of arms that then ended up with holdings that the dumb pajeets gave them, and it snowballed from there.

  26. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    tldr: the British got their hands on India and mostly didn't frick up the opportunity it presented.
    There were a huge number of factors, but the single biggest one is that the British came to be in control of India, which both represents the biggest and most important chunk of the Empire. The self-ruling settler colonies were culturally significant but geopolitically and economically marginal (and were mostly empty space anyway). Most of the rest of the empire was a late addition or directly depended on the power of British India for its existence.
    Through a combination of cunning and dumb luck the British came to be a very powerful faction in India during the 1700s when the Mughal state was disintergrating, outcompeting rival Europeans (primarily the French) and gaining the right to act as revenue collectors, from there they gradually expanded and consolidated the area under their control until they controlled the continent.
    This is the key departure point. Once the British were controlling territory and collecting taxes they were no longer entirely dependent on importing bullion to pay for commodities and soldiers and they were able to encourage things that would have faced resistance from a native government (such as mass opium growing and unrestricted import of British textiles).
    I recommend John Darwin's 'Unfinished Empire: The Global Expansion of Britain' for a good general history.

  27. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    King Henry VIII created English navy. English navy helped them sail worldwide and trade with other nations. Trade helped them become wealthier and more powerful than other Euro nations.

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