Quote:
Originally Posted by coinflip_si
Incorrect imo. The decline of the British Empire only began after WW1, where in fact it was at its zeneath. Common misconception to associate teh relative decline of British industry with the decline of her empire as a whole. Besides, the British Empire, although fairly important in bringing about structured societies and western language and culture to many parts of the world, was relatively unimportant in shaping the world we live in today.
Relatively unimportant? Relative to what exactly?
Language, sport (soccer, cricket and Rugby), railways and transportation, vacination, new standards of hygeine and medicine (see medical journal The Lancet), scientific enlightenment namely classical physics and the theory of eltromagnetism; Adam Smith and the division of labour, the birth of consummerism, the birth of the industrial revolution and the exploitation of fossil fuels (including oil), the invention of the television and the lightbulb, the forming of nuclear physics, the abolishment of slavery, colonies and thus the rise of the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Canada imbuing these with their character and identity, the jet engine and the steam engine, Shakespeare, the early computing device (babbage machine), the invention of the electric generator, the division of the middleast and rise of Israel, and probably someother stuff.