Opium Wars

When I was a kid I was reading a history of the British Empire. I came across the history of the Opium Wars, between England and China,

I thought England was being libeled when I read the English made war on China for China's refusal to allow Indian grown opium (this was about 1860 when India as a well established part of the Empire, the Jewel in the Crown, to be imported into China, enslaving her people and driving them further into poverty).

The prejudice I acquired in California Public School told me this was the sort of behavior to be expected of the Yellow Peril, not white Europeans who always acted for the Good.

So I did what I always did, I consulted my Dad, a great lover of history who could knowledgeably answer any history question I might ask him.

The book was right, my Dad assured me, and that was not the worse thing the English had done. He referred me to the English invention of the concentration camp during the Boar War, and the secret police-like actions of the Black and Tans the great Winston Churchill had sent to Ireland to smash the Irish quest for independence in the form of the Republican Army.

I was reminded of this while reading Piers Brendon's excellent THE DECLINE AND FALL THE THE BRITISH EMPIRE.

To paraphrase Oliver Cromwell: I want my history warts and all.