Attention Economy


Friday, June 12, 2020

The Truth about the British Empire

A Statue Was Toppled. Can We Finally Talk About the British Empire?
“Dispossession, appropriation, elimination and enslavement were central to the British Empire and to the making of modern Britain. Its initial expansion westward into the territories of the Americas was followed by commercial and colonial initiatives in the East. This was compounded by Britain’s involvement in the Europe-wide trade in human beings from Africa and circuits of indentured labor from Asia.
These histories rarely make it into the standard narratives of how Britain came to be. Instead, there is either a glorification of the empire or amnesiac histories that either ignore it or consider it benign. The end of the empire is similarly elided”.

The East India Company, a trading firm with its own army, was masterful at manipulating governments for its own profit.
The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire by William Dalrymple

The British Empire – Consequences of Colonialism