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by SpicyLemonZest
1730 days ago
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My concern is that people tend to lean into the "noble savage" trope; I've seen a lot of people who imply or outright state that wars of conquest are a uniquely European concept. But I do agree with the narrative issue you're pointing at. It's wrong to see colonial-era violence and oppression as a side show to the "main plot" of history, especially given that the majority of the global population was on the receiving end of it. |
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What changed my view about the world is thinking about the economics.
Take the US, for example. In the popular imagination, the success of America is all about entrepreneurial spirit, etc etc. But the other aspect is... four million square miles of (in a manner of speaking) undeveloped land! Entrepreneurial spirit is great, but literally having more natural resources than you know what to do with (didn't get around to developing California till the 1900s, for example) seems at least as important.
Given the past several centuries were a free-for-all for nations with empires, it doesn't surprise me that the colonized societies, whatever their inherent strengths and weaknesses, wound up in bad shape.