Put it this way, for all the bad shit the British Empire did, they STILL had higher moral high ground as they put resources and military might to end the slave trade. And most of their former colonies didn't dissolve into shit and many had a good relationship after with the example of the commonwealth.
Then you look to the French example of empire and...oh dear...
Empire's aren't bad depending on leadership and focus, the Roman empire was a great example and it took centuries of bad leadership and a REALLY bad plague to finally kill off the WESTERN half as the EASTERN empire survived for centuries later. The media just enjoys putting it as an evil idea as the thought that a stronger nation can simply bring others under their influence goes against their more subtle and gay way of the UN, WHO and USAID etc.
It's not just the slave trade. It's also that they introduced the good part of modernity (like railroads, rule of law and representative government) where their government structures were sound (indirect rule was quite a different matter).
And if you compare empires to nation states, it's not at all clear to me that nation states are superior. Clearly, they have greater viability, or we'd have more empires and fewer nation states, but a great deal of suffering has been imposed on people to create these nation states - expulsions, forced assimilation, language politics. There are people in France, and all other European countries, who have been made second-class citizens due to their native language - which is not a language brought by invaders, but the language (as naturally evolved) that their forefathers spoke, whether Occitan or Flemish. Empires generally respect nationalities, even as they also have dominant nationalities.
The British colonized like they intended to have their people move and live there to further develop the lands, so they had to establish law and order suitable for their people
Put it this way, for all the bad shit the British Empire did, they STILL had higher moral high ground as they put resources and military might to end the slave trade. And most of their former colonies didn't dissolve into shit and many had a good relationship after with the example of the commonwealth.
Then you look to the French example of empire and...oh dear...
Empire's aren't bad depending on leadership and focus, the Roman empire was a great example and it took centuries of bad leadership and a REALLY bad plague to finally kill off the WESTERN half as the EASTERN empire survived for centuries later. The media just enjoys putting it as an evil idea as the thought that a stronger nation can simply bring others under their influence goes against their more subtle and gay way of the UN, WHO and USAID etc.
It's not just the slave trade. It's also that they introduced the good part of modernity (like railroads, rule of law and representative government) where their government structures were sound (indirect rule was quite a different matter).
And if you compare empires to nation states, it's not at all clear to me that nation states are superior. Clearly, they have greater viability, or we'd have more empires and fewer nation states, but a great deal of suffering has been imposed on people to create these nation states - expulsions, forced assimilation, language politics. There are people in France, and all other European countries, who have been made second-class citizens due to their native language - which is not a language brought by invaders, but the language (as naturally evolved) that their forefathers spoke, whether Occitan or Flemish. Empires generally respect nationalities, even as they also have dominant nationalities.
The British colonized like they intended to have their people move and live there to further develop the lands, so they had to establish law and order suitable for their people