Was the British Empire good or bad?

I'm sure many countries would not exist today if it weren't for the British Empire. Then again, many countries would have been better off without it. Overall, I think the British Empire was extremely important in shaping the modern world, not to mention the impressive magnitude of power Britain possessed because of it.

Obviously there are arguments for both sides but overall what would you say?.

I think of it in the same way as i think of the roman empire, everyone hated the Romans but they still brought government,medicine,trade, hygiene etc ofcourse they also brought war and death, i think the same can be applied to the British empire.

And you have to think about it in the context of the time, it was a competition really that the British won if the Brits didnt do it the Frnech Spanish or Germans would have then the world would look so much different.

I honestly cant decide whether it was good or bad.

yea vastly simplified it was just basically away for Europe to gain wealth, by taking money from richer countries, that wud be a threat. Development, and all other ''benefits' are just side affects, they were not intended.

I'm not even British and I love the Empire. It was fantastic and the it's reach, innovation and achievements in all aspects of, well, everything is simply astounding. The fact that it achieved all this from an island nation is mind boggling.

It's a far cry from the weak, liberal pathetic excuse of a country left now. A shadow of it's once great might.

You want to sum up the largest empire, indeed the largest ever sovereign polity, in one word? Contrary to what both neocolonialists and anticolonialists want to believe, the Empire's legacy is mixed.

On the upside the Empire planted the seeds for liberal parliamentary democracy all over the world. It spread major advances in technology across six continents and greatly helped explore the seventh. It filled out a lot of the blank spaces on the map in the second great age of discovery after the initial Spanish-Portuguese efforts several centuries prior. It spread the superior common law system in lieu of continental Europe's more authoritarian civil law approach. We created nations from scratch like Hong Kong and Singapore, Canada, Australia and the United States, that have all become powerful forces, in general, for good in the modern world (I believe, anyway). The combined might of the Empire helped win two world wars and bound the Commonwealth (most of it anyway, silly old Ireland ) together in unity after the breakup of the Empire. Unlike every other European power we generally had a pretty peaceful and amicable withdrawal, excluding several incidents in the run up to Indian independence and the Mau Mau rebellion, but these are pretty minor in contrast to Portugal fighting a long and bloody war in Africa, an almost-coup d'etat in France over Algeria, and Belgium bombing the crap out of the Congo. The Empire's culture fostered fantastic advances in philosophy and society as a response to the industrial revolution, and we treasure much of the musical, visual and literary art of the Victorian era. There is a lot to be said for the Empire.

On the downside? A lot of warmongering, severe classism, and a racist and paternalistic attitudes towards other cultures. We precipitated the oppression of indigenous groups in North America, Oceania and Africa that leaves a stinging legacy to this day. Our desire to expand and conquer drove us to create terrifying military machines like the machine gun, the bomber and chemical weapons, which would claim the lives of millions in two world wars. We carved up Africa after we left with no concern over tribal or religious differences, and these have taken decades to settle - for example Southern Sudan voted just months ago to secede from Sudan after a pointless conflict that could have been easily avoided by drawing up more suitable borders based on the Islam-Christianity divide in Sudan.

Ultimately I don't regret that we forged the Empire, that we spread great ideas, established good infrastructure, a common and beautiful language, and forged bonds transcending continental differences - our relationships with Australia and Canada for example are pretty damn strong for the most part for example, despite being thousands of kilometres away, because of our shared imperial and cultural history. I do wish that we hadn't left in such a hurry without sorting things out properly - the old colonial borders are clearly inadequate for achieving lasting peace in Africa especially, and I wish that we had adopted more of the conciliatory approach that appeared hurriedly in the last days of the Empire. Perhaps we could have been a democratic trans-national union with a population of billions and territories right the way around the globe. T'was not to be

It would have been intended. By developing infrastructure and trade, in many situations there would have been economic benefits to both the occupying nation and the occupied nation. Hence why Canada for example now has the third highest standard of living in the world. If we didn't want to turn the colony into a developed country, we wouldn't have.

They couldn't have actually benefited from Canada as such, there were no people to trade, with and there was no civilization to plunder, they would have had to build from scratch. The only benefit to Britain I can think of is territory and natural resources (which we only know how to use today)
As for Canada, it did grow prosperous bcoz of the british and they built a nation out it but other places grew poorer.

You want to sum up the largest empire, indeed the largest ever sovereign polity, in one word? Contrary to what both neocolonialists and anticolonialists want to believe, the Empire's legacy is mixed.

On the upside the Empire planted the seeds for liberal parliamentary democracy all over the world. It spread major advances in technology across six continents and greatly helped explore the seventh. It filled out a lot of the blank spaces on the map in the second great age of discovery after the initial Spanish-Portuguese efforts several centuries prior. It spread the superior common law system in lieu of continental Europe's more authoritarian civil law approach. We created nations from scratch like Hong Kong and Singapore, Canada, Australia and the United States, that have all become powerful forces, in general, for good in the modern world (I believe, anyway). The combined might of the Empire helped win two world wars and bound the Commonwealth (most of it anyway, silly old Ireland ) together in unity after the breakup of the Empire. Unlike every other European power we generally had a pretty peaceful and amicable withdrawal, excluding several incidents in the run up to Indian independence and the Mau Mau rebellion, but these are pretty minor in contrast to Portugal fighting a long and bloody war in Africa, an almost-coup d'etat in France over Algeria, and Belgium bombing the crap out of the Congo. The Empire's culture fostered fantastic advances in philosophy and society as a response to the industrial revolution, and we treasure much of the musical, visual and literary art of the Victorian era. There is a lot to be said for the Empire.

On the downside? A lot of warmongering, severe classism, and a racist and paternalistic attitudes towards other cultures. We precipitated the oppression of indigenous groups in North America, Oceania and Africa that leaves a stinging legacy to this day. Our desire to expand and conquer drove us to create terrifying military machines like the machine gun, the bomber and chemical weapons, which would claim the lives of millions in two world wars. We carved up Africa after we left with no concern over tribal or religious differences, and these have taken decades to settle - for example Southern Sudan voted just months ago to secede from Sudan after a pointless conflict that could have been easily avoided by drawing up more suitable borders based on the Islam-Christianity divide in Sudan.

Ultimately I don't regret that we forged the Empire, that we spread great ideas, established good infrastructure, a common and beautiful language, and forged bonds transcending continental differences - our relationships with Australia and Canada for example are pretty damn strong for the most part for example, despite being thousands of kilometres away, because of our shared imperial and cultural history. I do wish that we hadn't left in such a hurry without sorting things out properly - the old colonial borders are clearly inadequate for achieving lasting peace in Africa especially, and I wish that we had adopted more of the conciliatory approach that appeared hurriedly in the last days of the Empire. Perhaps we could have been a democratic trans-national union with a population of billions and territories right the way around the globe. T'was not to be

Well that solves your own argument of ''it was a way to get money from richer countries that were a threat''.

The previously inhabited colonies were hardly wealthier than Britain, and if there weren't any people to trade with, then there was no one to act as a threat. Personally I don't see why it would be a problem to use the unclaimed, unused land if no body is living their?