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The British empire collapsed within the last 100 years so you can ask living people today what it was like to love through a collapse of the empire they lived i
by charcircuit 1y ago
The British empire collapsed within the last 100 years so you can ask living people today what it was like to love through a collapse of the empire they lived in.
- rainsford 1y agoThat's an interesting case because the collapse of the British Empire lined up pretty well with the rise the US as first one of two global superpowers and then the global superpower. It seems likely that the experience of imperial collapse might be different when you're replaced with a power that more or less is politically, militarily, economically, and linguistically aligned with you. I haven't conducted an exhaustive study, but I imagine that's not necessarily the common experience.
- hermitcrab 1y agoThe British empire didn't really collapse, as such. Britain just couldn't maintain it after the financial stress of WWII. Also independence was implicit in the WWII support of some of the colonies. So a war weary Britain (grudgingly) granted independence to it's former colonies. It went better in some countries than others. The partition of India was a disaster.
- tshaddox 1y agoOf course, I would expect the experience to be different in the last three hundred years or so. Since the Industrial Revolution, it’s much more likely for an average person’s quality of life to improve during their lifetime due to technology even if their nation is undergoing a collapse in power relative to other nations.
- eterm 1y agoI think "Denial" sums it up.
- tim333 1y agoI think people in the US, India and Australia etc are getting on ok without us. Britain muddles along.