It's a good article, but that one is about the effect of settlers (demographic replacement, at least a proportion). Colonialism's effects can of course be mediated by settling, but many of them seem to relate to just having better government for countries with notoriously bad government. The Qingdao case is very clear on this (99% Chinese population) as is Hong Kong.
´´It is modeled on the principles that economic research show works the best: free markets, low taxes, and not much regulation.´´
He says, as a Dane in Denmark, not realizing that his country proves that wrong. It should be pretty obvious that human capital is the variable that explains why both Denmark and Singapore are rich, while the Third World is not, and not low taxes.
Imagine how great the world would be if Europeans had never decided to colonize SSA and instead let the Arabs and later the Asians enslave, exterminate, and colonize it. There would be far fewer SSAs in the world, maybe none by now. It's harsh but unarguable, I think, that the fewer SSAs (and Arabs) there are in the world, the better it is. The EA morality of Bantu-maxxing or SSA-maxxing in general is impractical and unthinking. The most important graph as per Steve Sailer is relevant here. There will be ca. 3+ billion SSAs in 2100, and half of the world population will live in Africa. Based on surveys, half of them want to move. That means 1-2 billion SSAs moving to Europe (there wont be much of Western Europe left by 2100 but still some), North America, Australia, etc. because those are the only places that will want to take them. Non-whites don't want Africans, Arabs or SSAs, including their own racial/ethnic compatriots; they will only take them under pressure from the West. It's going to be interesting to see whether the West can force the Asians into mass 3rd world replacement immigration once they realize that they can't survive the onslaught much longer.
You will gradually see more upper middle class Westerners move to parts of Asia and Latin America where they are treated better by the locals. Not just places like Australia/New Zealand, but also places with big expat communities like South Korea or Japan and of course Singapore.
Chile is quite stable already. Argentina can be good if they get more Europeans to stabilize the country.
Your taxes will not be used to support diversity officers or racial quotas in those countries.
Argentina's mostly European-descended, still pretty chaotic. A lot of Latin America's stuck in the middle-income trap and resents Yankees. As for Japan...that'll always be a niche thing. Japan is for the Japanese. There are bars in Japan that ban foreigners, and it's totally legal. You'll never really belong.
U.S. whites complain for hispanics. You think they are willing to move to hispanic country. Btw Western countries are still very homogeneous places if you would compare with others(india, mena, brazil).
You missed that part where I say that you will be "treated better by the locals"? This is about having a good life where your taxes won't go into supporting diversity bureaucrats and affirmative action programs. There're no racial hiring quotas for Africans in Chile or Argentina because there are almost no Africans in those countries.
German here. Will continue to read, but first some wikipedia to set the record straight about the Herero Wars and the benevolent Germans:
"It took the Germans until 1908 to re-establish authority over the territory. By that time ... 65,000 of 80,000 Hereros and at least 10,000 of 20,000 Nama (had) died as a result of the conflict. ...
Aftermath: ... On 16 August 2004, 100 years after the war, the German government officially apologised for the atrocities. "We Germans accept our historic and moral responsibility and the guilt incurred by Germans at that time," said ... Germany's development aid minister. In addition, she admitted that the massacres were equivalent to genocide.
The Herero are suing the German government in a class action lawsuit. In 2021, Germany announced that they would repay Namibia €1.1 billion." -
Tsing-Tao/China: In 1900, the Kaiser famously said about the Boxer Rebellion in China: "Should you encounter the enemy, he will be defeated! No quarter will be given! Prisoners will not be taken! Whoever falls into your hands is forfeited. Just as a thousand years ago the Huns under their King Attila made a name for themselves, one that even today makes them seem mighty in history and legend, may the name German be affirmed by you in such a way in China that no Chinese will ever again dare to look cross-eyed at a German"
"Unwoke" Spon article from 2016. Despite that being only 6 years ago I don't think it could be printed today as it goes against the Zeitgeist. The moderate arguments in it seem sound though.
> Lau questions all the statistics: the total number of Herero before the war, the estimates of the survivors, the strength of the German troops. She calls the attempt to deduce a genocide from all the "uncertainties" "historical nonsense".
We don't know how many Herero there were. The genocide-theory assumes the demographics before the conflict are high, and after low, the difference is mass murder. The non-genocide-theory assumes that the demographics were much lower and that most Herero simply migrated to Botswana.
That was a very interesting article, ich danke! Indeed, even SPIEGEL (the German NYT) publishing this - and the Zeitgeist was not that much different in 2016 - well, if a German general is talking genocide, my first guess is to believe him. But yep, might have been "wishful thinking". wtf. Anyways, that article is not really close to make the German rule in Namibia seem very beneficial.
Qingdao - that may very well be. They still brew the best beer in China, today. Tsingtao. Prost!
The quotes suggested to me otherwise, but I take your word for it.
Deep breath: I DO mostly agree with the author if defined as: "European colonialism was not all bad and often, maybe even typically, an improvement; possibly a massive one." (Germany's even more so, but to a big part because we were not involved in those often bloody fights for independence, having lost all colonies before.) Well, I do like reading your blog, thus I can not be too woke, can I?
Germans can judge: some of "us" were a colony of the Roman Empire. (Cologne, Trier, left side of the Rhine). The others "free" tribes. Where would you have wanted to live? The colony wins hands down. Silly Arminius - though he is the one with a monument (tallest German statue, near my place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermannsdenkmal )
Will I buy the book? Kindle 15€ - 25€ on paper in English or German (better cover). Nope. Maybe another title, when much cheaper - and I may not read it (too many fine substacks to follow). I feel, I would agree most with the review of Tomislav on goodreads (2 stars only, I would give at least 3. Cheer for contrarians!): https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/59365789#CommunityReviews
I might send Harald Martenstein a link (centrist German columnist, who sometimes dares to daydream about benevolent colonialism. Today. Love that guy! Unique. As in: uno) .
Yep, and I am running out of shelfs. Libgen seems blocked in Germany, and though I voted Piraten once, I go tpb et al when abroad only (oh, that was why I voted Piraten; wanted my home to be free, too). Me boomer, could not find your email even. Had a good laugh at (ir)rationalwiki, though. Those guys love to hate you. - Anyways, me pensioner, thus here my mail for sending me everything except viruses. I have calibre, Kindle, Tolino, so any format will do. kainehr@yahoo.com
Colonialism sucks because baby sitting low iq masses is usually a sub optimal use of high iq peoples time.
In a world we’re physical access to resources or unique biological advantages (African disease immunity before anti biotics) there were reasons Europeans want colonies and slaves. But nowadays we can just buy cobalt or whatever from them while they do their own thing.
Japan, South Kore and Singapur have high hdi/gdp per capita than many european countries. They should colonize europe according to your logic. Newyork or California should colonize denmark. I hope you will be happy.
Maybe woke left was right in some topics. You are literally defending colonialism. It includes slavery, slave trade, genocide, massacre, pop transfers with force, occupation. I thought you are libertarian. I thought european/white right wing intellectuals were more libertarian than others. It seems i have to change my ideas.
I can anecdotally support this. I lived in Nauru, a tiny Pacific Island, for a while some time ago.
Basically there are 12 tribes who co-existed somewhat peacefully and somewhat not until western boats bought alcohol which led to essentially relentless violence.
The Germans then arrived, kidnapped the 12 Chiefs and said "you can have them back as soon as she we get all the guns", the deal worked a treat and Nauru knew perhaps the best 50 years of its history until it was transferred to Australia and NZ and GB after WWI.
But if we take a hereditarian/HBD view, then we couldn't simply hand wave away the Nazi experience, or the exterminationist or population replacement oriented colonialism of Northwest/Germanic Europeans in North America and Australasia.
Incidentally, Gilley seems to focus on a period in which colonialism was a backdrop to intense inter-state competition among the European powers. The colonies were sources of labor and resources to be marshalled to compete against other European states. The objective was a bit different than under population replacement oriented settler colonialism. Hitler and the Nazis made the argument that since most of the Earth was already colonized by European powers, trying to acquire territory outside of Europe meant going to war against European states, so it would make more sense to try to acquire territory in Europe for Germany.
Also, it's not clear that the kind of colonial rule Gilley extols was good for Europeans in general. There are claims that it benefited narrow sectional interests but that in general they were money and resource sinks for the broader European population. Moreover, if it were truly positive and beneficial, to such an extent that it would eventually uplift the colonized above and beyond the colonizing power, then it's not clear how Gilley could maintain that it would be good for Europeans and a worthy project. It seems his argument is premised on some sort of static situation that fossilizes into a caste system.
Gilley's argument is also premised on a kind of Fukuyama-esque End of History view in which liberal democracy is the final and best telos for human society, which seems dubious.
Finally, I don't think this is a completely intellectually honest case. I don't think Gilley would argue that colonialism enabled population explosion of Africans, for example, and their extensive integration with Europeans, were good and good for Europeans in particular. And I don't think he would believe that genuine uplift of colonized populations that raised them above and beyond Europeans in wealth and power would be good. But he's not making an explicit case for domination that maintains static hierarchies. He's couching his case in terms of beneficent uplift.
The book isn't about Nazis except for arguing about their origins and anti-colonialist views. In any case, Nazis didn't do any colonies in the usual sense in their short reign. The author obviously doesn't like them. Gilley mentions anti-Semitism (many people running colonies were Jewish Germans) as a frequent cause of anti-colonialism leading up to the Nazi period.
Yes, I'm aware Gilley's focus isn't on the Nazis. He and similar authors tend not seriously engage with the topic, for obvious reasons, beyond facile strawmen about Nazis being anti-colonialists like contemporary libs, and thus "libs being the real Nazis."
It is noteworthy that the Nazis did look to US racial laws and westward frontier expansion and replacement of the Amerindians as a model for their prospective expansion to the east and beyond into Russia. It's not clear why according to Gilley's argument Nazi settler colonialism in the east and racial laws would be worse than the North American experience.
Moreover, the German Empire was in practice very autocratic, dominated by the Kaiser and the junker class, with a rubber stamp Reichstag. So it can't really be defended on the basis that liberal regimes are good, or at least better, simply by being liberal. Gilley seems to admit this when he suggests that German colonialism was good because it would have made Germany liberal eventually or something.
İs western colonialism include soviet rule on central asia&caucasia, german(habsburg/prussia) rule on slavs in eastern europe? Some people think there is such thing as a polish colonization of ukraine.
Colonialism may have indirectly promoted communism. Foreign oppression and violence can strengthen vengeful socialism. Thailand, for example, is did not have a communist revolution. This country has maintained its independence unlike Vietnam, Cambodia or Burma. Thailand is also the most integrated to western world and 2nd richest country(after malaysia) in that region.
Yes, Thailand is a bad example. It's generally done better than the ex-French Indochina countries, ex-Dutch East Indies, and former Spanish/US Philippines.
Quite interesting. But isn't colonialism really difficult to set up from an economical and an administrative standpoint, especially in today's advanced market conditions? Do you think a more modern form of "colonialism" would be genetic interventions? If we get to the point where we have really accurate genomic selection, or even the more futury stuff like CRISPR and iterated embryo selection, increasing IQ by 1 SD would have the same if not greater effect on economic and political prosperity, and it would have the added benefit of being more easily accepted (I think you posted a poll where third world countries were much more approving of genetic interventions to boost intelligence). Anecdotally, I don't see anyone from the EA crowd having the "coloniser" vibe (those were some tough dudes)
Fascinating article, and thank you for excerpting it, though I think some of your commentary steers too far towards Scylla in an attempt to avoid Charybdis. The reduction in the population of Herero and Nama from 100,000 to 30,000 was an appalling crime, not "a pretty civil method of achieving peace". You can argue that the popular image of German colonialism is inaccurate without whitewashing atrocities.
Niall Ferguson is another historian that has talked about the benefits of colonialism and has gotten a lot of hate.
I know this article is about German colonies. But if there's one that compares English/American colonies vs French ones, it will be very interesting indeed. The gift of the English language to the people of the Philippines and India is perhaps the biggest factor in their rise and integration into the world economy. In contract, look at Haiti or Ivory Coast. I think the French language has held back those countries.
Another related study linking colonial to higher average incomes. Probably know of it but I'll include it here anyways because it is related.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10887-016-9130-y
It's a good article, but that one is about the effect of settlers (demographic replacement, at least a proportion). Colonialism's effects can of course be mediated by settling, but many of them seem to relate to just having better government for countries with notoriously bad government. The Qingdao case is very clear on this (99% Chinese population) as is Hong Kong.
´´It is modeled on the principles that economic research show works the best: free markets, low taxes, and not much regulation.´´
He says, as a Dane in Denmark, not realizing that his country proves that wrong. It should be pretty obvious that human capital is the variable that explains why both Denmark and Singapore are rich, while the Third World is not, and not low taxes.
Imagine how great the world would be if Europeans had never decided to colonize SSA and instead let the Arabs and later the Asians enslave, exterminate, and colonize it. There would be far fewer SSAs in the world, maybe none by now. It's harsh but unarguable, I think, that the fewer SSAs (and Arabs) there are in the world, the better it is. The EA morality of Bantu-maxxing or SSA-maxxing in general is impractical and unthinking. The most important graph as per Steve Sailer is relevant here. There will be ca. 3+ billion SSAs in 2100, and half of the world population will live in Africa. Based on surveys, half of them want to move. That means 1-2 billion SSAs moving to Europe (there wont be much of Western Europe left by 2100 but still some), North America, Australia, etc. because those are the only places that will want to take them. Non-whites don't want Africans, Arabs or SSAs, including their own racial/ethnic compatriots; they will only take them under pressure from the West. It's going to be interesting to see whether the West can force the Asians into mass 3rd world replacement immigration once they realize that they can't survive the onslaught much longer.
You will gradually see more upper middle class Westerners move to parts of Asia and Latin America where they are treated better by the locals. Not just places like Australia/New Zealand, but also places with big expat communities like South Korea or Japan and of course Singapore.
Chile is quite stable already. Argentina can be good if they get more Europeans to stabilize the country.
Your taxes will not be used to support diversity officers or racial quotas in those countries.
Argentina's mostly European-descended, still pretty chaotic. A lot of Latin America's stuck in the middle-income trap and resents Yankees. As for Japan...that'll always be a niche thing. Japan is for the Japanese. There are bars in Japan that ban foreigners, and it's totally legal. You'll never really belong.
U.S. whites complain for hispanics. You think they are willing to move to hispanic country. Btw Western countries are still very homogeneous places if you would compare with others(india, mena, brazil).
You missed that part where I say that you will be "treated better by the locals"? This is about having a good life where your taxes won't go into supporting diversity bureaucrats and affirmative action programs. There're no racial hiring quotas for Africans in Chile or Argentina because there are almost no Africans in those countries.
German here. Will continue to read, but first some wikipedia to set the record straight about the Herero Wars and the benevolent Germans:
"It took the Germans until 1908 to re-establish authority over the territory. By that time ... 65,000 of 80,000 Hereros and at least 10,000 of 20,000 Nama (had) died as a result of the conflict. ...
Aftermath: ... On 16 August 2004, 100 years after the war, the German government officially apologised for the atrocities. "We Germans accept our historic and moral responsibility and the guilt incurred by Germans at that time," said ... Germany's development aid minister. In addition, she admitted that the massacres were equivalent to genocide.
The Herero are suing the German government in a class action lawsuit. In 2021, Germany announced that they would repay Namibia €1.1 billion." -
Tsing-Tao/China: In 1900, the Kaiser famously said about the Boxer Rebellion in China: "Should you encounter the enemy, he will be defeated! No quarter will be given! Prisoners will not be taken! Whoever falls into your hands is forfeited. Just as a thousand years ago the Huns under their King Attila made a name for themselves, one that even today makes them seem mighty in history and legend, may the name German be affirmed by you in such a way in China that no Chinese will ever again dare to look cross-eyed at a German"
Enlightened monarchy is best, or maybe not?
"Unwoke" Spon article from 2016. Despite that being only 6 years ago I don't think it could be printed today as it goes against the Zeitgeist. The moderate arguments in it seem sound though.
https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/voelkermord-an-den-hereros-in-deutsch-suedwestafrika-a-1098649.html
Google Translate:
https://www-spiegel-de.translate.goog/spiegel/voelkermord-an-den-hereros-in-deutsch-suedwestafrika-a-1098649.html?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp
> Lau questions all the statistics: the total number of Herero before the war, the estimates of the survivors, the strength of the German troops. She calls the attempt to deduce a genocide from all the "uncertainties" "historical nonsense".
We don't know how many Herero there were. The genocide-theory assumes the demographics before the conflict are high, and after low, the difference is mass murder. The non-genocide-theory assumes that the demographics were much lower and that most Herero simply migrated to Botswana.
That was a very interesting article, ich danke! Indeed, even SPIEGEL (the German NYT) publishing this - and the Zeitgeist was not that much different in 2016 - well, if a German general is talking genocide, my first guess is to believe him. But yep, might have been "wishful thinking". wtf. Anyways, that article is not really close to make the German rule in Namibia seem very beneficial.
Qingdao - that may very well be. They still brew the best beer in China, today. Tsingtao. Prost!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsingtao_Brewery
The book covers this discussion in detail.
The quotes suggested to me otherwise, but I take your word for it.
Deep breath: I DO mostly agree with the author if defined as: "European colonialism was not all bad and often, maybe even typically, an improvement; possibly a massive one." (Germany's even more so, but to a big part because we were not involved in those often bloody fights for independence, having lost all colonies before.) Well, I do like reading your blog, thus I can not be too woke, can I?
Germans can judge: some of "us" were a colony of the Roman Empire. (Cologne, Trier, left side of the Rhine). The others "free" tribes. Where would you have wanted to live? The colony wins hands down. Silly Arminius - though he is the one with a monument (tallest German statue, near my place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermannsdenkmal )
Will I buy the book? Kindle 15€ - 25€ on paper in English or German (better cover). Nope. Maybe another title, when much cheaper - and I may not read it (too many fine substacks to follow). I feel, I would agree most with the review of Tomislav on goodreads (2 stars only, I would give at least 3. Cheer for contrarians!): https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/59365789#CommunityReviews
I might send Harald Martenstein a link (centrist German columnist, who sometimes dares to daydream about benevolent colonialism. Today. Love that guy! Unique. As in: uno) .
Why not just Libgen? I only buy books for looking cool on the shelf. Otherwise email me and I'll send it.
Yep, and I am running out of shelfs. Libgen seems blocked in Germany, and though I voted Piraten once, I go tpb et al when abroad only (oh, that was why I voted Piraten; wanted my home to be free, too). Me boomer, could not find your email even. Had a good laugh at (ir)rationalwiki, though. Those guys love to hate you. - Anyways, me pensioner, thus here my mail for sending me everything except viruses. I have calibre, Kindle, Tolino, so any format will do. kainehr@yahoo.com
Colonialism sucks because baby sitting low iq masses is usually a sub optimal use of high iq peoples time.
In a world we’re physical access to resources or unique biological advantages (African disease immunity before anti biotics) there were reasons Europeans want colonies and slaves. But nowadays we can just buy cobalt or whatever from them while they do their own thing.
Japan, South Kore and Singapur have high hdi/gdp per capita than many european countries. They should colonize europe according to your logic. Newyork or California should colonize denmark. I hope you will be happy.
Maybe woke left was right in some topics. You are literally defending colonialism. It includes slavery, slave trade, genocide, massacre, pop transfers with force, occupation. I thought you are libertarian. I thought european/white right wing intellectuals were more libertarian than others. It seems i have to change my ideas.
I can anecdotally support this. I lived in Nauru, a tiny Pacific Island, for a while some time ago.
Basically there are 12 tribes who co-existed somewhat peacefully and somewhat not until western boats bought alcohol which led to essentially relentless violence.
The Germans then arrived, kidnapped the 12 Chiefs and said "you can have them back as soon as she we get all the guns", the deal worked a treat and Nauru knew perhaps the best 50 years of its history until it was transferred to Australia and NZ and GB after WWI.
But if we take a hereditarian/HBD view, then we couldn't simply hand wave away the Nazi experience, or the exterminationist or population replacement oriented colonialism of Northwest/Germanic Europeans in North America and Australasia.
Incidentally, Gilley seems to focus on a period in which colonialism was a backdrop to intense inter-state competition among the European powers. The colonies were sources of labor and resources to be marshalled to compete against other European states. The objective was a bit different than under population replacement oriented settler colonialism. Hitler and the Nazis made the argument that since most of the Earth was already colonized by European powers, trying to acquire territory outside of Europe meant going to war against European states, so it would make more sense to try to acquire territory in Europe for Germany.
Also, it's not clear that the kind of colonial rule Gilley extols was good for Europeans in general. There are claims that it benefited narrow sectional interests but that in general they were money and resource sinks for the broader European population. Moreover, if it were truly positive and beneficial, to such an extent that it would eventually uplift the colonized above and beyond the colonizing power, then it's not clear how Gilley could maintain that it would be good for Europeans and a worthy project. It seems his argument is premised on some sort of static situation that fossilizes into a caste system.
Gilley's argument is also premised on a kind of Fukuyama-esque End of History view in which liberal democracy is the final and best telos for human society, which seems dubious.
Finally, I don't think this is a completely intellectually honest case. I don't think Gilley would argue that colonialism enabled population explosion of Africans, for example, and their extensive integration with Europeans, were good and good for Europeans in particular. And I don't think he would believe that genuine uplift of colonized populations that raised them above and beyond Europeans in wealth and power would be good. But he's not making an explicit case for domination that maintains static hierarchies. He's couching his case in terms of beneficent uplift.
The book isn't about Nazis except for arguing about their origins and anti-colonialist views. In any case, Nazis didn't do any colonies in the usual sense in their short reign. The author obviously doesn't like them. Gilley mentions anti-Semitism (many people running colonies were Jewish Germans) as a frequent cause of anti-colonialism leading up to the Nazi period.
Yes, I'm aware Gilley's focus isn't on the Nazis. He and similar authors tend not seriously engage with the topic, for obvious reasons, beyond facile strawmen about Nazis being anti-colonialists like contemporary libs, and thus "libs being the real Nazis."
It is noteworthy that the Nazis did look to US racial laws and westward frontier expansion and replacement of the Amerindians as a model for their prospective expansion to the east and beyond into Russia. It's not clear why according to Gilley's argument Nazi settler colonialism in the east and racial laws would be worse than the North American experience.
Moreover, the German Empire was in practice very autocratic, dominated by the Kaiser and the junker class, with a rubber stamp Reichstag. So it can't really be defended on the basis that liberal regimes are good, or at least better, simply by being liberal. Gilley seems to admit this when he suggests that German colonialism was good because it would have made Germany liberal eventually or something.
İs western colonialism include soviet rule on central asia&caucasia, german(habsburg/prussia) rule on slavs in eastern europe? Some people think there is such thing as a polish colonization of ukraine.
Colonialism may have indirectly promoted communism. Foreign oppression and violence can strengthen vengeful socialism. Thailand, for example, is did not have a communist revolution. This country has maintained its independence unlike Vietnam, Cambodia or Burma. Thailand is also the most integrated to western world and 2nd richest country(after malaysia) in that region.
* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Republic_of_the_Union_of_Burma
* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge
* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Vietnam
* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lao_People%27s_Revolutionary_Party
Yes, Thailand is a bad example. It's generally done better than the ex-French Indochina countries, ex-Dutch East Indies, and former Spanish/US Philippines.
Quite interesting. But isn't colonialism really difficult to set up from an economical and an administrative standpoint, especially in today's advanced market conditions? Do you think a more modern form of "colonialism" would be genetic interventions? If we get to the point where we have really accurate genomic selection, or even the more futury stuff like CRISPR and iterated embryo selection, increasing IQ by 1 SD would have the same if not greater effect on economic and political prosperity, and it would have the added benefit of being more easily accepted (I think you posted a poll where third world countries were much more approving of genetic interventions to boost intelligence). Anecdotally, I don't see anyone from the EA crowd having the "coloniser" vibe (those were some tough dudes)
Fascinating article, and thank you for excerpting it, though I think some of your commentary steers too far towards Scylla in an attempt to avoid Charybdis. The reduction in the population of Herero and Nama from 100,000 to 30,000 was an appalling crime, not "a pretty civil method of achieving peace". You can argue that the popular image of German colonialism is inaccurate without whitewashing atrocities.
Niall Ferguson is another historian that has talked about the benefits of colonialism and has gotten a lot of hate.
I know this article is about German colonies. But if there's one that compares English/American colonies vs French ones, it will be very interesting indeed. The gift of the English language to the people of the Philippines and India is perhaps the biggest factor in their rise and integration into the world economy. In contract, look at Haiti or Ivory Coast. I think the French language has held back those countries.