Empire in the past was always a far harsher and much more accident-prone business than conventional history books imply. And the costs of these overseas invasions were borne not just by those on the receiving end but - frequently - by ordinary, vulnerable people among or associated with the invaders.
Interpretation
The harsh realities of empire are often overlooked in conventional histories.
This quote by Linda Colley emphasizes that the complexities and costs of creating and maintaining empires are often misrepresented in standard histories. It points out that while history tends to focus on the powerful and their maneuvers, the true impact of imperial ventures extends not only to the subjugated but also adversely affects the ordinary people associated with the invaders, highlighting the often ignored human costs of imperialism.
In practice
In a lecture about colonialism, this quote can illustrate the often hidden costs borne by common people during imperial conquests.
Look at how the British covered India with railroads, and it is easy to view them as modernisers. Look, however, at the abysmal levels of mass illiteracy in the subcontinent they left behind in 1947, and they appear rather differently.
Much of how Americans have always understood their history, culture, and identity depends on positioning Europe as the 'other,' as that 'old world' against which they define themselves.
My father's father fled a pogrom in Russia in the early 20th century and was welcomed to the United States. So was my stepmother, who escaped as a young girl from Communist Hungary in 1950.
The Germans could not get over the perfidy of it. It was unbelievable that the English, having degenerated to the stage where suffragettes heckled the Prime Minister and defied the police, were going to fight.
Slavery is the great and foul stain upon the North American Union.
The first democratic revolution was England in the 1640s.
For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid.
Laila Lalami has fashioned an absorbing story of one of the first encounters between Spanish conquistadores and Native Americans, a frightening, brutal, and much-falsified history that here, in her brilliantly imagined fiction, is rewritten to give us something that feels very like the truth.
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