Empires Quotes
Surprisingly, many third world leaders very much desired to become colonies of Great Britain. This letter was not only signed by the King but all the princes as well. The letter languished for more than 3 years in the British Foreign Office without even an answer as British governments vacillated between expansionism and anti-colonialism.
At the time, some Palestinian Arabs claimed exclusive rights to the territory on the grounds that Arabs had dominated the area for the longest period of time. They gave no credence to the fact that the Jews had dominated the area and it was the center of their kingdom for many years before—that Jews had constantly lived in the area of longer than the Arabs, nor did they give any credence to the fact that the Christians had conquered the area from the Muslims during the Crusades.
The priest had come to the Empress to complain about the debauchery of her Prime Minister and made the error of describing him as the first man of the empire. The story may be apocryphal but it illustrates the character of the Empress. The source of the exact words are given in the historical novel, Luise Muhlbach, Joseph II. and His Court
This statement was made after he had led the Muslim Ottoman Turkish Army to success in capturing Constantinople—Byzantium, Istanbul—bringing the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire) to an end. He had his sights set on the Western Roman Empire next which was the remainder of what they knew of as the world then.
Hong Kong was not always a successful city or colony. In 1844 the British were thinking of swapping it for a better colony. However, in a rare combination of synergistic development of a colony, the great strengths of the Chinese and that of the English combined to make Hong Kong one of the best and well developed cities in the world. Few imperial colonies turned out as well.
1st Viscount Bolingbroke
There are some who have argued that the United States 20th century of world dominance was an empire. Perhaps so, but it did not have most of the characteristics that Thucydides and most others thought of as characteristics of empire—occupation of nations, rule by the Imperial country, privilege in other nations of the Empire, control. Most important, in historical empires, money—in the form of taxes or goods was commandeered by the Empire for the mother country. The US taxed no one, and money flowed the other way in the most generous sharing of foreign aid in human history. The United States had great influence and was able to exert economic and sometimes military pressure on many nations of the world; American culture was adopted by many nations, but America rarely behaved as Empires historically did.
While he fairly described the Spanish intentions, the reality which was not known at the time, was that most of the deaths in South America were caused by disease brought by the Spanish for which Europeans had some immunities and the natives of the New Word, none.
