In the 19th century Britain as a democratic monarchy and France as a democratic republic engaged in extensive empire-building, which was very popular at home. As Deirdre McCloskey loves to say, for Britain (and France) empire was a major consumption good. The empire allowed even the lower class Britons to be lords of the earth.
In a message dated 4/23/04 11:33:28 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >Would the fact that more countries are democratic - the biggest military >powers (except China) are democratic anyway have got something to do with >the absence of recolonisation, despite military gap, as democracies >ostensibly do not go to war with each other. Nevertheless, most >decolonisation occurred in the 1960s. Four decades is too short a time >to >assume that it would not happen again. > >Bart JP
