Sebestyen’s 1946 is a great book about the most important events of the post-war era. Here are some highlights that I found especially interesting:
1. The very first conflict in the Cold War started in a place called Tarbiz, in Iranian Azerbaijan. It was the world’s first global oil crisis.
2. In the UK, a man called Victor Gollancz led the campaign to send food parcels from the starving Britain to the even more starving Germany. “Nothing can save the world but a general act of repentance because we all have sinned,” he said. The campaign was extremely successful. Obviously, Gollancz was a Jew.
3. According to Keynes, the only reason for Britain’s post-war money problems was the enormous upkeep of the Empire. Let’s remember that, contrary to the opinions of idiots, economically Empires bring nothing but extra costs or even financial ruin that lasts for centuries.
4. A mid-level US officer wrote the “Declaration of Humanity” delivered by the Japanese Emperor Hirohito. After the Emperor publicly declared that the Japanese people were not of divine descent and not superior to other peoples, Japan started on its way to modernity. Pity the officer is no longer among the living because it would be great to make Russians adopt a similar declaration.
Clarissa's Blog 
Let’s remember that, contrary to the opinions of idiots, economically Empires bring nothing but extra costs or even financial ruin that lasts for centuries.
Nothing? Not even initially or in the interim to the colonizers? 🙂 Colonies served as captive markets, raw material depots, and places to absorb troublemakers and siphon off tensions. In the long term, yes, I agree it is more costly than not to hold an empire.
What deleterious effects do you see Britain suffering now as a result of having such a large empire? Or even during Victorian times? Britain was and still is a prosperous nation. It was my impression that Britain shed large parts of its empire because a combination of independence movements and damage from World War II made it too hard to hold on to colonies and rebuild at the same time. If one or the other hadn’t happened, Britain still would have colonies. I’m not sure America would be still be a nation Napoleonic Wars hadn’t been going on at the same time as the War of 1812. Spain and France and Belgium are still much more prosperous than any of their former colonies.
There was a very brief window during industrialization made the costs of maintaining an empire low enough to be profitable. Coupled with insensitivity to loss of colonizer life, this made empires feasible. The U.S. doesn’t have an empire per se not because of a lack of military might; it’s because people don’t have the stomach for significant loss.
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The beginning of the end for the British Empire was actually WWI not WWII. The combined loss of men from the two wars made holding on to the entire empire especially India by military force impossible. If the British had tried to be like the Portuguese and fight to hold every scrap of territory for as long as possible then probablyit would be a lot poorer today. As it is in some parts they did fight to maintain longer like Kenya cost them quite a bit, especially in terms of moral capital. One of the things that kept the USSR in the running in the Cold War was the fact that some European colonists decided to fight to maintain their empires. This ended up giving the Soviets a lot more political capital in Asia and especially Africa than they deserved simply by pronouncing “we oppose colonialism.” Had the Europeans dismantled their decaying empires voluntarily at the end of WWII it is likely that both the US wins the Cold War sooner and that the US does not get involved in a land war in Indochina.
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The evidence that a colonial past does not doom a country to poverty is everywhere. The US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand are all doing fantastic.
The reasons why Latin America has been doing worse than Spain in the past 30 years are many. A very big reason is that Spain has kicked the Catholic Church in the shins. Spain has chosen the path of democracy, women’s rights, gay rights, etc. Latin America, on the other hand, still collectively thinks that treating women as cattle is a good idea. And women don’t seem to disagree a whole lot.
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