[lordgroff]

Eastern European here who wonders how the Ottoman rule was a thousand years ago. The Ottoman colonization lasted some 500 years for us and ended in late 19th and early 20th centuries, depending. Btw, I agree with your general point that colonization is pretty much always a net negative.

[filleduchaos]

If you perhaps look at my comment again you will notice that I said the conquests, not the period of colonisation. The point, which might have been easy to miss, was that getting up and invading another nation in the Middle Ages is a rather different proposition from getting up and invading one close to the turn of the 20th.

[Veen]

I can't help but think you rely on Whiggish assumptions about history. Invasions in the Middle Ages and today seem different if you think we have progressed beyond our ancestors, that to act against that supposed progress is to betray it.

In fact, we're cognitively identical to the Medieval and Roman people. We have different ethical frameworks in the 21st century, but human nature doesn't change so fast. The British in the 19th Century were driven by the same underlying factors as the Romans 2000 years ago and Russia, China, and (arguably) the US today. We can certainly condemn it and trumpet our moral outrage, but that doesn't help us to understand or avoid it.