Reddit reviews An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India
We found 6 Reddit comments about An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Aleph Book Company
This book describes the colonial rule in India including the Churchill's crimes in India:
https://www.amazon.com/Era-Darkness-British-Empire-India/dp/938306465X
Read this book before spewing retarded crap from your mouth.
https://www.amazon.com/Era-Darkness-British-Empire-India/dp/938306465X
There is an assumption in your statement that Industrialization is a good thing and that it has helped millions of people from the Third World. I think we need to be skeptical of this claim and examine it more closely.
It also has caused massive environmental damage, not to mention concentrating enormous amounts of wealth and power in the hands of a few rich corporations.
If you look historically the Industrial Revolution happened in the early 19th century with Scientific breakthroughs in Britain. Modern machinery was invented to mass-produce goods but the people who owned the machines needed workers.
Poor peasantry in England was convinced to quit farming and join the factories promising higher wages. Marx has written extensively on this phenomenon. The raw material was sourced from the colonies.
Before the industrial revolution India was the largest producer of cotton fabric in the world with a vibrant handloom textile industry, with the advent of machines and colonial power it was decimated and there were more famines during the colonial period in India than any other time. You can read Shashi Tharoor's excellent book on this if you are interested:
An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India
The whole thing worked like a well oiled machine till the war broke out. The colonies were intentionally not industrialized so as to keep them behind. Only a few modern technologies were transferred, such as the railways/ports in India to ease in the movement of raw material from the colonies.
There was a comment by /u/Spider-DeepInMySoul posted on this forum a while ago which systematically disproves the notion that capitalism has alleviated poverty in India.
https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/comments/4t1ssl/how_to_answer_the_capitalism_has_saved_the_third/d5dzqjb/
Yes! Apart from playing India's Hindu-Muslim divide, the Brits did play on this caste divide. They stayed here for like 200 years, their arrival saw the falling of Mughal Empire and departure, the creation of the Republic of India. Two centuries are enough to entrench it. Assuming you are from the USA, may I recommend you these two books, if you are interested to know more about the British rule in India by Shashi Tharoor. Inglorious Empire and An Era of Darkness.
This book mentions the myths associated with colonialism. You should read it.
http://www.amazon.in/Era-Darkness-British-Empire-India/dp/938306465X
>The industrial revolution lead to global prosperity; can you truly say that India is not better off today that it was prior to colonialism?
If you compare from 200 to 500 years ago India with respect to Europe, it is worse today. Before colonialism Asia was in same footing as Europe, if not less. As the drain of wealth enriched Europeans but also impoverished colonial subjects. Industrial revolution in England also resulted in destruction of household and cottage industries in India. As british policies encouraged import of british good, with no tax or levy while highly taxed local goods making them noncompetitive.
What ever good colonialism did good to India, it took its payment in flesh and blood, and that too 100 times more.
I will check out paper, you can check out this book.
https://www.amazon.com/Era-Darkness-British-Empire-India/dp/938306465X