Tag Archives: British Empire

Kraut’s Biggest Failure

It’s always interesting to see what it takes to go big on YouTube. In my second critique of the YouTuber Kraut, I analyze his biggest video ever, “Trump’s Biggest Failure”. This thing has racked up over four million views over the past five years. Kraut is very skilled at his medium, and is very intelligent. But I think it’s very telling that his most successful video, by a factor of four or so, is so very standard in its views. It’s more compelling and fun in its presentation, but this video on China is basically a Pentagon briefing or a Cable news special in its content. I wonder if there’s a broader lesson there?

I hope you enjoy this latest “YouTube Drama” video. Stuff like this keeps the channel ticking over so I can produce less popular but more worthwhile content.

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How Yemen Beat The British | Yemen Vs. Empire II | Avoiding the British Empire 20

This is exactly the sort of video I’ve always wanted to do. I believe history should have some passion behind it. That’s the best way to teach it. The point of this series should be becoming clear. My hope is to tell the modern history of Yemen, and do it in such a way that it sticks with people, by drawing firm connections between what’s happening now, and what has gone before. I’m pleased with how the series has gone so far, and I’m excited to complete it, and finally move on to other projects I’ve been delaying for too long. The hope is that now that I’ve done this once, I will be able to repeat the trick for other countries in the region more easily.

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How Yemen Beat The Ottomans | Yemen vs. Empire

I have been working on this one for years. For years I have said that this channel is about politics and history, but with this series I would like to make that more real. In three (or maybe four) videos, my hope is to cover many of the high and low points of the past 500 years of Yemeni history, while also providing an in depth, informed take on Yemen’s current status. I think today’s video is a good start. Wish me luck!

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Ray Dalio Doesn’t Understand World Order

Ray Dalio’s book on the changing World Order has been universally praised since its publication. I fear that may be because nobody has read it.

So far it seems like my “drama” videos have been more successful when they go after folks who are native to the app rather than establishment figures. Ray Dalio happens to be both. He’s one of the most successful Hedge fund investors of all time, and he racks up tens of millions of YouTube views. Here’s hoping this video is successful. Reading his book was a bit of a chore.

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Is Russia In Ukraine Ending US Empire?

This isn’t really a Russia Ukraine video. But it’s certainly been prompted by that horrific event. Washington, DC got this one right, and I got it wrong, not expecting Putin to be this stupid. But I think the exultation we’re getting from a lot of pundits today is misplaced. Some see this as a Pearl Harbor moment, hoping that it will wake the US public from its slumber, make us forget the past 20 years of imperial mismanagement, and fall in line behind the same clowns who brought us the current dismal global situation. Needless to say, that’s not my take. I do see hope here though. Russia has proven itself to be thuggish, and surprisingly weak. The situation we have now, a real fight, might finally convince Washington, DC to engage in a little prioritization. The United States is actually a very capable and impressive country. This moment could cause us to do better. In today’s video I use a similar video from British Imperial history to talk about how.

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Why Money Didn’t Make Ethiopia Peaceful | Ethiopia 4 | Ireland 2

Comparative history is not an exact science. It can be a fraught business. I’m sure there are a number of ways in which today’s video could be portrayed as condescending or even a bit racist. “What do you mean Ethiopia is 100 years behind Europe!!!”. But comparative history is too useful a tool, to not use. Unfortunately, it’s often used poorly. With this video, and a follow up I’m still drafting, I hope to debunk some of the dumber comparisons that are made. I also want to show that while Ethiopia’s civil war is horrible, it’s not really much of a detour from normal development.

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Should India Pakistan & Afghanistan Be This Channel’s Next Big Project?

This one is less about concrete ideas around India and Pakistan than it is a call to arms (or a call against arms) for everybody to learn more about the topic. The gap between the importance of this conflict and the amount of knowledge analysts, let alone the general public, have about it is vast. India and Pakistan are some of the largest countries on the planet, they have nuclear weapons, and they have the sort unsettled borders and over-powerful militaries that make further conflict more likely than not. Today’s video makes the case for making the region the channel’s next big project.

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How English Freedom Crushed Egypt | Ismael & Urabi | Avoiding the British Empire 16

This morning I was struck by another one of the reasons that the British Empire still has such a positive reputation (in some circles). When we focus on the British interaction with a group of people, we tend to focus on the end. It’s the struggle for independence that matters for the national stories of all the formerly subjugated countries. Of course, these stories are still in living memory for many, which also contributes to their popularity. But beyond that, nobody wants to look like a victim. Newly independent countries understandably want to focus on their victorious heroes rather than their defeated and brutalized ancestors from centuries past.

The British certainly committed many atrocities as their empire fell apart. Jallianwalla Bagh and the suppression of the Mau Mau are just two instances that leap to mind. But the more popular image is one of haplessness. The humiliation of Suez, the pretentious pointlessness of Mountbatten. The things that Britain is most blamed for at the end, like the Israel Palestine situation, and horrors of Indian partition, are stories about British neglect and poverty, not British greed and destruction. You can almost (not quite) find yourself pitying the British as their carefully crafted systems of control fall apart.

If you look at the other end of the Imperial story, there is nothing British to sympathize with. In country after country we see the people who live there struggle and fail, against differing degrees of brutality, as universally hypocritical Englishmen proclaim their civilizing values and cash their checks. Today’s video attempts to surface just one of those hundreds (thousands?) of stories, by telling the neglected tale of the British subjugation of Egypt.

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Why Isn’t Egypt As Rich As Germany? | Muhammad Ali | Avoiding the British Empire 15

History can seem predictable sometimes. We know how it turned out, so we assume that the countries that are powerful today had somewhat predictable paths to power. Sure, there were ups and downs, but the countries we’ve come to expect to have done well, did well. No surprises there. The story of Egypt’s 19th century provides a counterpoint to that complacency. There was a lot about its story that was quite similar to the stories of the Japanese and German world-beaters we are more familiar with. In the 1830s, an African country was, quite successfully, intervening in Europe. If a few things had gone differently, Egypt might have ended up as one of the world’s great powers.

It all went wrong of course. And the British had a lot to do with this. But too some extent, it was also just bad luck. There was nothing to guarantee that Japan or Germany would be successful countries. There wasn’t even anything guaranteeing that the United States would have been as successful an experiment as it has been. It’s all much more up in the air than we might think. This is a little terrifying, but also a little exciting. Today’s video on Egypt talks about what could have been.

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What PragerU Gets Right About The British Empire | Avoiding the British Empire 14

This one was kind of a journey. Attacking PragerU’s dumb mistakes, as I did in the last video, is not a difficult project. Many have done so already. What’s a lot more difficult, is reckoning with the valid points that Prager makes. The British Empire was tremendously influential, and it is responsible for the spread of representative institutions all over the world. Prager is absolutely right about that.
The larger problem is reconciling these two things we know about the British Empire:

A: It left the world some decent institutions and…

B: The British Empire inflicted massive suffering on the world, on a scale that dwarfs anything that came before, and Britain’s poorly managed reign ended with the multi-decade apocalypse we know as the two world wars.

The standard approach is to pick one narrative and run with it. The viewpoint you choose often coincides with the left or right political marketing segment you choose to fall into. What I try to do with today’s video is reconcile the two, which involves diving in and attempting to sort out my own feelings about freedom, history, and life in general. I’m not sure it’s entirely successful. Let me know how you think I did.

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