202410041451 Status: #idea Tags: #history #politics #institutions #british_empire #globalization # The two main lines of criticism for the British Empire 1. The impact on the colonized - many historians argue that the purpose of the empire was to subjugate and exploit native populations for the benefit of Britain itself. They maintain that even the potentially positive aspects of the empire, such as learning about the colonized’s culture, was in reality an attempt to better subjugate the population 2. The impact on the colonizer - liberal economists believe that the empire was a “waste” in the sense that it required a large amount of money and manpower to maintain. If instead Britain had focused on free trade and spent that money and manpower on improving its own internal industries, it would have been better off Responses to those criticisms: 1. [[The British Empire liberalized many cultures]] 2. [[Global trade may not have been possible without the British Empire]] --- # References [[Empire_ the rise and demise of the British world order and the lessons for global power]]