Empire

One was the destruction of the Jewish state and temple.

The other was the breakup of the Roman Empire.

These two catastrophes, though divided by a considerable interval of time and altogether different in their operation, were in various ways closely combined in their effects on the state of the world.

They were catastrophes of the same order, the overthrow and passing away of the old in things most deeply concerning human life that the new might come.

The fall of Jerusalem was the evident close of a theocracy which up to that time had for ages counted on a divine guarantee and which looked forward without doubt to ending only in the consummation of a messianic triumph.

It was the apparent extinction of the visible kingdom of God on earth, the doom pronounced by the course of events on claims and hopes which to those who lived under them seemed the most sure of all things.

The fall of the Roman Empire was the overthrow of the greatest, the strongest, and the most firmly settled state which the world had ever known.

The dislocation and reversal of the long-received ideas and assumptions of mankind, of their habits of thinking, of the customs of life, of the conclusions of experience.

Entering rarely into foreign politics, and then with a conspicuous absence of dignity or success, the royal house of France saw its kingdom surrounded by foes or lukewarm friends, nearly every one of whom was superior to itself in strength.

To the north and east, the Empire and Lorraine, the great dynasties of Flanders and Burgundy, were each more than an equal combatant for the Frankish king.

Southwards, the Kingdom of Arles, sometimes close linked to the Empire, sometimes enjoying a precarious independence, stood aloof with many marches and counties from the influence of the central realm.

The great dukes of Aquitaine and the proud house that ruled in Toulouse, scarce in their most friendly moments professed any allegiance to the Capet.

And the demon race, sprung, said legends, from the union of an Angevin count with an unearthly bride, which ruled on the banks of the lower Loire and the Maine, the borderline between France, Aquitaine, and Brittany, was gathering its powers in grim concentration of purpose for a wider sweep which should endanger the throne of the Frankish king.

In the political disputes of the Burgundian Duchy, he no less actively intervened.

He encouraged the disagreements between the Duchess Mary and her son Hugh III, and secured the submission of their dispute to the decision of his own court.

He even intervened in the districts of the Kingdom of Burgundy which depended feudally on the Empire.

The obvious victims of this expansion slash imperialism were the Native Americans, but we can also include the Mexicans who lost their sovereignty after 1848.

And if that doesn't sound like an empire to you, allow me to draw your attention to the Russian Empire.

Russians were taking control of territory in Central Asia and Siberia and either absorbing or displacing the native people who lived there, which was the exact same thing that we were doing.

The empires of the late 19th and early 20th centuries were different because they were colonial in their own special way.

China is our natural customer.

In the end, imperialism was really driven by economic necessity.

In 1902, Brooks Adams predicted in his book, The New Empire, that the U.S. would soon, quote, outweigh any single empire, if not all empires combined.

Within 20 years, America would be the world's leading economic power.

Chapter thirteen A: Imperialism in Southern Asia, part one.

Subsection: From Chartered Company to Empire.

"In India," said Theodore Roosevelt, "we encounter the most colossal example history affords of the successful administration by men of European blood in a thickly populated region in another continent.

It is a greater feat than was performed under the Roman Empire.

Successful administration of the Indian Empire has been one of the most notable and most admirable achievements of the white race during the past two centuries." Set this statement against the words of Mohandas Gandhi, the holy one who led India in passive resistance to British rule in nineteen twenty through twenty-two.

"I came reluctantly to the conclusion that the British connection had made India more helpless than she ever was before.

Politically and economically, the government established by law in British India is carried on for this exploitation of the masses.

For them the war was not to make the world safe for democracy.

He enabled the Diet to realize and translate into positive Finnish law points that had been before, perhaps, disputable; and with his reign began that extraordinary social, educational, and industrial development which in spite of almost insuperable natural drawbacks has placed the little nation well in advance of any other within the same degrees of latitude.

And the gain has been not less great for the Empire than for the Grand Duchy.

Although in their own little world of politics the rivalry between Fennoman and Svecoman has now and again run keen and high, Finland never produced in the Diet or out of it a conspirator or an agitator against Russia.

It provided instead generals for her armies and admirals for her fleet; and in the worst moments of war, or in the still more desperate ten years’ combat with terrorism, Russia never needed to detach a soldier or a spy for special service in Finland.

The madness of Charles XII made it easy for Peter to extend his waterfront here from the Neva to the Duna.

But although his armies had occupied and administered Finland for several years, he does not seem to have felt himself strong enough at the peace of Neustadt to secure the northern shore of the Gulf as well as the southern.

Although shorn of half its might by the folly of his successors, the kingdom which Gustavus Adolphus had built up was still a comparatively powerful state and the determined resistance which had been offered on more than one occasion by the scanty and ill-organized population of Finland, even when deserted by Sweden, was sufficient to show that the forcible retention of the Grand Duchy would render it a source of weakness rather than of strength to the Empire.

Consequently only a small strip of territory was annexed and it is a curious fact from this time forward successive rulers of Russia, although never relaxing their determination to detach Finland from Swedish influence, were profuse in their assurances that so far from desiring to annex or incorporate that country, its independence would be forever guaranteed under the protection of Russia.

Chapter thirteen A: Imperialism in Southern Asia, part one.

Subsection: From Chartered Company to Empire.

In India-

Said Theodore Roosevelt.

We encounter the most colossal example history affords of the successful administration by men of European blood in a thickly populated region in another continent.

It is a great feat than was performed under the Roman Empire.

Successful administration of the Indian Empire has been one of the most notable and most admirable achievements of the white race during the past two centuries.

Set this statement against the words of Mohandas Gandhi, the holy one who led India in passive resistance to British rule in nineteen twenty through twenty-two.

Chapter thirteen A: Imperialism in Southern Asia, part one.

Subsection: From Chartered Company to Empire.

In India-

Said Theodore Roosevelt.

We encounter the most colossal example history affords of the successful administration by men of European blood in a thickly populated region in another continent.

It is a greater feat than was performed under the Roman Empire.

Successful administration of the Indian Empire has been one of the most notable and most admirable achievements of the white race during the past two centuries.

Set this statement against the words of Mohandas Gandhi, the holy one who led India in passive resistance to British rule in nineteen twenty through twenty-two.

Chapter Thirteen A: Imperialism in Southern Asia, Part One.

Subsection: From Chartered Company to Empire.

"In India,"

said Theodore Roosevelt,

"we encounter the most colossal example history affords of the successful administration by men of European blood in a thickly populated region in another continent.

It is a greater feat than was performed under the Roman Empire.

Successful administration of the Indian Empire has been one of the most notable and most admirable achievements of the white race during the past two centuries."

Set this statement against the words of Mohandas Gandhi, the Holy One who led India in passive resistance to British rule in nineteen twenty through twenty-two.