Rob's Friend Comments

Interesting stuff. The British Empire seems to be cropping up in just about everything I read at the moment, but I'd argue that the point Butcher is making is academic rather than ethical. Even if the Belgians in the Congo had been worse than the British in Kenya, say, it doesn't make what the British did right. It is a bit like the old argument about who was worse, Hitler or Stalin? The 'loser' in that particular argument doesn't suddenly become your ideal dinner guest. I think you should read The Rise & Fall of the British Empire book, amongst other things it argues that the British were at their worst when they ended up defending the interests of a large, entrenched group of settlers. Which is a key difference to the Belgians in the Congo.

I could not access meetup.com or goodreads in China. Very odd that the Chinese government is iffy about books too. Well, since I aint into facebook, didn't affect me when Yan Pei told me that could not be accessed too.