Empires

People always talk about have the legacies of an empire cripple the current country (with wars, poor industrialization, ethnic strife, etc.) That is simply a false, generalized statement. The majority of countries today have been part of an empire (ie colonized or exploited) and yet the vast number of countries manage to move away from the colonial past better. Examples of countries that were once part of an empire and have since thrived are: the United States of America, South Korea, Israel. The US was part of the British Empire, the Russian Imperial Empire and the Spanish Empire and yet it is a democratic, highly industrialized nation. South Korea was part of the Japanese Empire and Israel part of the British Empire and yet today they also are highly industrialized. It is so easy to make a general statement that all colonial powers/empires did nothing but bad things to their colonies and that is why those independent countries now have problems. The Dutch Empire gave Indonesians their written language. The British Empire created the railroad system that is still highly used in India. There are numerous examples. In the end, while colonization did do many bad things to a territory and its people it also did many good things. Not all empires or colonial powers were "Western/White" either (as many people believe.)

Here's a list of Empires (I only included those that went into the 20th or 21st Centuries) and those non "Western/White" are in Bold:

- Austro-Hungarian 1867-1918 (51 years)

- Belgian Colonial 1901-1962  (61 years)

- British   1603-1997  (394 years)

- Danish Colonial  1350-1953 (603 years)

- Ethiopian  1137-1974  (837 years)

- French Colonial  1534-1980  (446 years)

- German Imperial  1871-1918  (47 years)

- Greater German Reich  1933-1945  (12 years)

- Imperial State of Iran  1925- 1979 (54 years)

- Indian 1858-1947  (89 years)

- Italian Colonial 1885-1943  (58 years)

- Japanese  1868-1947  (79 years)

- Korean  1897-1910  (13 years)

-  Nguyen Dynasty  1802-1945  (143 years)

- Omani 1698-1958  (260 years)

- Ottoman  1299-1922  (623 years)

- Oyo   1400-1905 (505 years)

-  Portuguese  1415-1999  (584 years)

- Qajar   1794-1925  (131 years)

- Qing Dynasty   1644-1912   (268 years)

- Russian Imperial  1721-1917  (196 years)

- Siam  1782-1932  (150 years)

- Soviet 1940-1989  (49 years)

- Spanish  1402-1975   (573 years)

- Warsangali   1298-1960  (662 years)

Here is the greatest extent of the above empires (ie the height of their power with year, percentage of world's land mass and population):

- British:  1922,   23% of land, 458 million people

- Spanish:  1760,  19% of land,  68.2 million people

-  Russian Imperial:  1866,  15% of land,  176.4 million people

-  Qing Dynasty:   1759,  9% of land,  432 million people

- French Colonial: 1938,  9% of land, 112.9 million people

- Portuguese:   1815,  6% of land

- Japanese:  1942,  4% of land,  134.8 million people

- Greater German Reich:  1942,  4% of land,  75.4 million people

- Ottoman:   1683,  3% of land,  39 million people

- Italian Colonial:  1940,  2% of land,  51.9 million people

- Dutch:  1940,  2% of land,  60 million people

- German Colonial:  1914,  2% of land,  64.9 million people

- Danish:  1800,  2% of land

- Belgian Colonial:  1914,   1% of land

- Austro-Hungarian:   1880, 1% of land, 52.8 million people

If people and governments stopped complaining about their past woes and started focusing on their future then many countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America would become democratic, industrialized countries (many of them still receive financial and military support from their former colonial powers and that is pretty pathetic especially if 50+ years have past since they gained their independence.)