I feel like a lot of people forget how recently all this happened. This was all within living memory; two of my grandparents were born in British colonies.
My dad was born when South Africa was still 'n British colony. He was barely out of high school when he fought in the Angolan war of independence (South Africa sent in troops to support the Anti-communists). He jokes that "every time I walk through a metal detector, it's a little history lesson." Make of that what you will.
Please, please, consider CC History of Africa. I know it isn’t the topic most in demand, and won’t appeal to as many in the AP crowd, but gosh, it is important and it is so poorly covered everywhere, and the African countries importance globally keeps increasing. We should be a part of watching and engaging with that. Or just a modern history. Please, it shouldn’t be a footnote in talking about US and European topics.
@@Theturtleowl there is UNESCO General History of Africa books and they're like 10+ huge books... so I think there would be much to research for a Crash Course
I love when Crash Course talks about history. Decolonization was a very interesting period. When this series is over, I hope you consider doing serieses about African and Middle Eastern history. Maybe Asian history. To talk about the things they don't mention in schools about those continents
Jordan Nkosi the history of the entire world is mostly people having petty wars and slavery. Africa is no exception because africans are humans. Africa has many other things though, and i’d encourage you to atleast read a wikipedia page before you spread garbage. I don’t know how someone named “Nkosi” could say so many false things about Africa.
@@justwannabehappy6735 your racism knows no bound. Especially given how the video literally explained how the West warmongering and cold war politics basically continue to systematically abuse these nations after decolonization.
I would love to see more about neo-colonialism, neo-imperialism, and decolonization. It's super unfortunate that we don't get to learn much about it in school.
It's completely bizzare that they didn't mention either Yugoslavia or the Non-Aligned movement in this exact video. I love Crash Course and I watch every episode since way back when, but at times the writing is painfuly west-centric. If they only mention Yugoslavia in passing when USSR collapses it'll be completely stupid and misguided, because Yugoslavia by that point had nothing much to do with the USSR for something like 30 or so years. Countries which were in the USSR sphere of influence didn't have horrible, bloody civil wars when the USSR collapsed, and you could barely even call Yugoslavia socialist by the time the 80-ties rolled around, let alone the 90-ties.
Luka Kordić I find this series on Europe hugely disappointing, they are literally more concentrating on colonies like Chile or Cuba in 18th century wars episode than on partition of Poland, it was literally a footnote "by the way Poland was partitioned several times, meanwhile Britain kept other colonies besides US milking their resources..." I get it they have agenda that Europe is evil colonizer, but there were other things that were happening and shaped history of the world. Decolonization is really relevant topic in European context, but they are glossing over some of defining events in history. I find it troubling when narrative about European history gives more attention on how boring it was working in a factory than wars and rebellions and creation of new countries.
I just showed my mother. Her two best friends are from Jamaica. Now, she can tell her friends, Jamaica may have had Bob Marley, but Trinidad had the Beatles!
I saw a picture on instagram of Dr. Eric Williams his wife together with John Lennon , Cynthia Lennon & Ringo Starr in Trinidad and was wondering how did that meet up manage to happen. Hearing this adds some background & context to the Beatles relationship with T&T.
France: Algeria? You mean a colony - I mean - an integral part of the country that should not try to gain independence. De Gaulle: Alright, time for a new constitution.
@@wanitooo Algeria was a special case. There were many European French in Algeirs, and hence De Gaulle wanted to curb the law to be able to integrate Algeria as a core part of France. (also nuke testing hee hee)
Also, it was because french generals in Algiers attemps to do a putch and threat metropolitan France (they reached Corsica) that the IVth French Republic call back De Gaulle to power as he was the only personnality strong enough to enforce stability and gain respect to the military commanders. It would need a full episode solely on the Algeria War to explain it properly from the french side and another to explain properly from the algerian side. It was a terrible conflict but a very interesting one to analyse with a lot of consequences today.
Short answer is France STILL wanted their empire and went through two Constitutions to give legitimacy to that such as the French Union and the successor French Community...
The problem in Syria is that France left in 1946 but with actions that seem not so innocent , they left the government and the army under the control of a group of minority which caused a state of instability which lasts till now . l admit as a Syrian that we have a lot of problems in our society that needed to be fixed but the role that France played was crucial even after 66 years during the Syrian civil war which started as protests against the regime . lt seems to me and to most Syrians that the super powers left us with 2 choices either the safety under a totalitarian regime or mass distraction , the war in Syria is a new phase of the cold war by my humble opinion . Great work Mr.John l really like the content you offer us and it changed the way l look to history through ,as always best wishes
@@LowellMorgan trying to leave some kind of democratic civilian government behind , this would have helped to make things go in more peaceful manner , but at that time France's leaders saw syria just as ethnic and religious groups , at that time most super powers saw the less developed countries like this unfortunately.
It’s amazing that we have gotten to point where some of these figures are still alive. It makes me think about how they see the world today and what they think of the worlds current circumstance.
Google Ian Smith. Former white president of Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. Under his (racist) rule, the African nation was one of the wealthiest countries on the continent, with extraordinary high standards of living for all races. He was eventually deposed by military dictator Mugabe, who managed to wreck Zimbabwe's economy. The country has become a shithole since then, and is one of the poorest in Africa. Really interesting story, especially because this history is so recent and there is lots of material to find on it.
I'd love to see you guys dive into American history and I'm not talking about the US, you already did that. But I mean Latin America, Canada, and the Caribbean islands.
It's has becomed political. The narrative is not neutral anymore. Not an improvement. Statements that are highly debated and controversial are stated as facts. I understand that they have to simplify things but... As a European interested in European history I'm disappointed of the very simplistic Americanized lens they use.
@@eirikbelisarius1100 there's no such thing as a neutral worldview. To pretend one side is equally as valid as the other is a form of bias itself. "Political" is just a club you're using to attack something you disagree with. Historical narratives that match your worldview I doubt you'd ever call political since you're "right".
@@Famalamri Well. He presents immigration to Europe as a plot to exploit people from the colonies. They are again victimized. Very simplistic. The immigrants have been given every chance in the countries they have chosen to immigrate to. The Bengal famine: It's not a clear cut case how at fault the British administrators were. Burma was invades by the Japanese at the time. The resources of the region were evacuated to avoid it coming into the hands of the invaders (like the Russians did). Later it was very difficult to send aid when the situation became clear because, you know, Britain was fighting for its life against tyranny (Germany and Japan). They had their resources stretched and the Japanese navy was a danger to any shipping. The Mau Mau in Kenya were really brutal. They ambushed white settlements and killed everyone. They believed that their rituals made them bullet proof. Really crazy things. The respons was brutal, but by far not as brutal as what they responded to. To blame the Europeans for the sectarian violence in Africa after decolonization is not really fair. That's what you get when you mix tribal warfare with AK47s. And to use the statistics that things have improved in Africa after 1950 as proof of how terrible things used to be. Well, things have improved in Europe too in the same timeframe. The world has improved. It doesen't prove anything. You might say that those nations that continued to build on the frame that the colonizers built by far have had more improvements than those nations that didn't.
@@kylewilliams8114 Facts matter. To present pros AND cons matter. To present things that are really debatable and by no way clear cut as simple facts are disingenuous.
Would love to see you expand more on Latin America's response to the to neo-colonialist projects and rebellion in the 60s and 70s as well as the post-colonial state of the Caribean and the current neo-colonial projects china currently have in parts of Africa and the Caribbean
It's important to note that it isn't just China trying to exploit the developing world, pretty much every country and NGO is trying to do the same and just like China they hide their true desires behind the vail of "Aid" and infrastructure development loans
@@obviouslyniceduh5521 Devils in the details, are those infrastructure loans really the same as predatory IMF loans? Look at what China's done with the debts its owed during Coronavirus vs what the world bank and the USA is doing with the debts its owed
While Latin America’s response to neo-colonialism is very important from a global standpoint, it is less integral to the history of Europe, which is the core of this series. Latin America was very much under US hegemony, and their Cold War politics were wrapped up much closer with US foreign policy than European policy.
its a stupid feature anyway. I´d wish he would just dispense with all those forced "format" elements. He´isnt that good at comedy, and his channel is dependent on facts and narratives. All that "though bubble/world globe ect" stuff is a habit from no-content youtubers trying to build fandom that way. Its just unwieldy and superflous in an educational channel, I feel.
@@nilesbutler8638 yea thats facts. I will say that thought bubble is good, but everything else is cringy and unnecessary. Glad someone said smth abt this
@@nilesbutler8638 It worked better when they were trying to have a bit more fun with Crash Course. They gave this series too serious a tone in my opinion.
@@babscabs1987 Gandhi as a young man was racist. However as he grew old he changed as a person. As an old man he many time spoke about the rights of black people in countries like USA. Please read real history, not bullishit propaganda served to you by Hindu nationalists and racist Europeans.
Maxence Barré yeah, the only difference being is that it's investment rather than colonization and only the Europeans are bragging about it everywhere.
Disappointed that Ireland's struggle to escape colonial rule wasn't mentioned but very important to teach people about the tyrannical rule of England over Kenya and India when they tried to gain freedom. We rarely hear about the history of Asian and African countries in the western world.
Yeah I was just thinking about that maybe it's because Ireland is predominantly white and ppl connect colonization and immigration with colored races(which is true but not completely)..but I'm glad they mentioned Bengal Famine it's pretty big deal in India and a reason why most ppl think that Churchill was just as bad as Hitler if not worse.
Ireland is a fantastic case study on the racial contradictions inherent to colonialism. By being the first colonial subjects of the British, kinda proved that they will make racist racial barriers to anyone who is different from them, black white asian Indian. The point was colonialism. The racism that lives today is almost worse because it’s been uprooted from its colonial history. But the IRAs love for the PLA and the Black Panther Party really show that decolonization was a multi racial multi ethnic battle. Still gotta Free Belfast and Palestine tho 💕
South Africa too was a massive asterisk in this episode. As were the Baltic states and Poland along with several other eastern bloc countries who far from experiencing a decolonisation in this period were subject to a new form of colonialism from Russia / The USSR. Indeed the whole episode barely scratches the surface when we look at places like Ireland, Latin America, Turkey, ETA, Morocco Indonesia even Australia and New Zealand. Heck even countries like China who had been colonised were often embarking on their pwn colonial projects in the middle of the last century. To say nothing of the erosion of the rights of Treaty nations in the Us and Canada or the Pacific. I think i whilst it is fair to say that colonialism receded in the post war period to some extent but suggest that it went away is an incomplete picture at best.
It should be clarified that Ireland was never a colony. The British Empire was created by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Irish soldiers, sailors, civil servants and politicians all participated in the creation and administration of the British Empire, as did the English, Scots and Welsh.
They definitely skipped over Ireland because there are white. Similarly the Independence of the US was a footnote in this series, imagine if John never mentioned France in the the US series. Nor did they talk about Greece gaining independce from the Ottoman. My ancestors had my of the same committed against them but I guess it doesn't help sell the narrative.
Funmilayo did the fashion clothing right. Preserve the color and patterns. Though she was saving heritage she was indirectly saving creativity against uniformity in the long run.
I'm a nearly 50 year old Brit and even now I still find out new awful things my country did in the past that we were never taught in school. It's shameful.
It’s not shameful, we came, we saw, we conquered. Human life is overrated and I’m proud of the Empire, I wish less weak willed people like yourself where around back then so we would still have it.
The conservatives in your country have destroyed many books and government reports to promote the idea that Great Britain. Most of the history about countries like India, Indonesia and countries in West Africa taught in European schools is derived from the works of racist Victorian 'Orientalists' who suppressed local historians and made the colonies look backward. Most of the colonies were advanced civilizations that were brought down by Islamic and Mongol Invasions making way for Europeans.
@@yj9032 every country teaches it's nationalistic jingoism, even the now independent colonies, but if you actually go to a library or a book shop you can still read what really happened. You make it sound like there is a campaign to destroy books, there simply isn't, but we are seeing less people read physical copies, entirely different thing. And to put England down as being evil? If they were evil they would have joined forces with the German forces instead of fighting them in WW2, marched their troops into India and started slaughtering the entire population for expansion room.
Thank you John and Crash Course team. As a child of a former French Colony living in France, my history lessons in school never depicted the history of my family and myself. It is truly wonderful to feel like a true part of history and specifically European History.
Hey John Green, I just want to say thank you for helping me on my ap European history, I had the test last week and before the test I watched all these videos and made the test a piece of cake! Thank you!
Really great to see the Fanon reference here. I recommend his book, "The Wretched of the Earth" on this topic. Also another read in this area in Kwame Nkrumah's "Neo-colonialism".
You used Indonesia's declaration of independece photos in 0:11 but failed to mention any of its history, also there's no mention of the Asia-Africa Conference (Bandung Conference) that was significant in creating a new narration for third world countries and the progress of decolonization.
@Jordan Nkosi Any news on when someone more interesting will replace you specifically? Is there a "replace Jordan Nkosi" fund I can donate to, or something?
@@georgelane6350 from an administrative and legal pov it was. It wasn't treated like other colonies and was french for a longer time than Savoy or Alsace-Lorraine. By the end of the conflict algerian got offered proper full french citizenship, and a big number of algerian fought for France. (France then abandonned those fighter to the new regime and a lot of them were massacred, it is one of the biggest national shame in France)
If you're going to (rightly, I add) call out European atrocities in Kenya and Algeria, you got to do more than just ignore atrocities committed by the Mau Mau. Historical truth, as you used to say, resists simplicity.
seems like nitpicking, especially considering the nationwide scale of CENTURIES of brutality caused systematically by a government as opposed to an uncoordinated, guerrilla warfare style resistance group. centrism, in this case is illogical
9:39 "[...] receiving nations benefited from this immigration." Ah, yes. Rich industrialists getting to employ cheaper labor, while nothing changes for the average middle-class person, is also how I see benefit to my nation.
And the reduction of wages which had been rising due to the shortage of labour. It was said you could walk out of one job on a Friday and into another job on the Monday.
They also do have to consume, things like housing and food, meaning that other people have to work to provide it. Plus they can send remittances and in a fairly democratic and individualistic way, not controlled by any country's president or party, make economic choices and develop a need for inclusivity in their home countries, making them better and also desiring more of the things the host country can make. And your industries are only rich the way you say they are if your workers' rights and immigrants rights are bad and the latter have legal statuses that make it easy to exploit them, like unsecure visa protections dependent on constant renewal rather than long term investment and breaking cycles of exploitation, and if your economic system in general poorly protects the economy from concentrated capital, failing to promote cooperatives for instance.
@@robertjarman3703 Their consumption increases demand for certain goods, which raises their price and further lower the real wages of the local working class. The only ones to benefit from this are the employers who get to may lower wages and sell at higher prices. As for remittances, I'm sure they benefit their home countries, but that's beside the point, John said immigrants benefited the host countries.
@@leobat7007 Only if as I said before if you are bad at having things like unions and cooperatives. And I explained why a remittance can help the developed countries as well as a growing economy there drives demand for what the developed economies can provide.
I was waiting for you to mention the Philippines as the US granted us the independence that they stole from us in 1898. American decolonization of the Philippines was a mere illusion as the US still imposed biased trade policies, loans, had a military base, and left us with a colonial mentality. hundreds of years under foreign occupation sure did left an impact that no foreigners could really comprehend. I just want the world to acknowledge the mistakes done by the abusers in the past.
well maybe they should include the Philippines decolonization from Spain and then America. and wow I never knew America colonized the Philippines, I learned something new thanks!
I wonder if anyone knows the story of Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti? Well, first, her son was probably the most influential African musician in all of the 20th Century, Fela Kuti. Kuti formed the independent Kalakuta Republic. The Nigerian government sent soldiers, who threw Funmilayo out of a window to her death. The family's story is incredibly compelling, and Fela Kuti's music is extraordinary.
Ahhhh, you're in for a happy surprise. Crash Course is one of John Green's MANY projects with his brother, Hank. He's been making videos with Crash Course for years.
I haven’t been watching crash course history for awhile but I’m so glad I came across this specific episode. Thank you crash course for educating us! I didn’t learn any of this in British education system.
@Keshav Why did I know I'd find some Hindu nationalists here? What's the matter, hating on Nehru not enough so you have to smear Bapu as well? And of course the ever popular if unsubstantiated idea that the Fauj actually got anywhere (also ironic since Bose actually admired Gandhi). Go back to worshiping your bois Savarkar (pretty ironic to be worshiping in his case, given his own atheism) and Godse please.
@@ArawnOfAnnwn I think he (Gandhi) was not a "anti hindu " but was a staunch racist and called the lower caste and blacks as "k*ffirs" , when the British supported the lower caste to vote (one of the only few things British did good in india), Gandhi strongly opposed it, he believed in "Aryan brotherhood", basically Nazism with North Indians as "superior" as Europeans, why do you think Gandhi's statues are now being taken down in african countries?
There are aspects of this series that i feel are very americanised or one sided, which i feel is a bad thing, beng that the show is called Crash Course European History. I was looking forward to this episode because i feel that from the colonial wars are a bit more morally ambigous than they might seem. I am bit disappointed because it is a far more complex issue than explained, at least from the view of the people at the time. For example, the portuguese people were taught by the fascist regime that the colonies, weren't colonies, they were provinces, like the various regions of Portugal itself, so when they were called (obligated) to go to war, they believed that they were defending their own nation. Salazar convinced everyone that what they were doing was right, and sent thousands of young men to die in a meatgrinder. It was a conflict that could be avoided by diplomacy, thousands of portuguese, guinean, angolan and mozambican lives could have been saved. The Colonial Wars are seen in Portugal as Portugal's Vietnam, it completely defined the generation that fought in this war. Europe isn't just France and the UK. I also feel that mentioning the problems faced by the europeans living the colonies after their independence could have been importante. Yes, there was imigration, but there also were millions of people returning to Europe, after losing everything they had in africa. These people also suffered discrimination when they arrived in Europe, their supposed homeland, they were basically refugees. But the video decides to go with the black and white thought of "Europe Bad", by just focusing on the drama of the arriving africans, which i am not disregarding by no means. Although i believe their integration wasn't as well made as the video makes it out to be. Finally, i think that mentioning that there were still fascist regimes in Europe during this time period was important, because in a way they were the reason that some of these wars happened the way they did. TL:DR The video is very reductive in the morals of the wars fought, and doesn't show the drama these events also represented to europeans. Also, the video focuses only in the UK and in France, which is wrong. Note: english is not my native language, there might be grammatical errors spinkled through this comment.
They didn't even got time to talk about the Francozone and the neocolonialism that to this day still happens in how the French Central Bank can offload interest rates and debt to african countries. Decolonization spanned the entire planet, hard to cover it all on a 13 minute video, though they did do a very good and dignified job
This was very informative and should be shown in history classes for all high schools. 20 years ago, when I was a history nerd in HS, America was portrayed as bigot and racist after WW2 (which was true), but Europeans were some how portrayed as not bigoted or racist (which was not true). Most of that is because we focus too much on the U.S equal rights and racial overcoming of the 1960s and beyond in history post WW2. Wish we learned more about this stuff back then.
Racism in America was much more institutionalized than in Europe. Europe was trying to hold onto colonies not because of racism but because of economics. Trying to down play racism in America by making false comparisons to Europe is shamefull.
Such a great overview of this period, it is breath taking to me that we do not learn this in history classes at school (and when we do get taught this era of history it is from one or two Euro-centric perspectives!)
The particular data and arguments used to contest alleged benefits of colonization were very weak. Improvement post decolonization does not particularly address if colonization was beneficial, especially in a period of history where such metrics were dramatically improving everywhere. Mind you, I am not saying the thesis is wrong, but you do no service giving unconvincing and flawed evidence.
Completely agree! Normally, I find CrashCourse to be sound in their arguments, but in this episode, two reasonings bothered me especially. Firstly, using (not even always) violent colonial regimes to explain the fact that many former colonies entered an extremely violent time after gaining independence, because they supposedly have only known violent rule, is just plain stupid. This is an excuse for nations, who obviously weren't ready to govern themselves, to engulf themselves in excessive violence. Just admit it, many former colonies were not up to the task of self-governance. An example for this case is Zimbabwe, today Africa's shithole, while it was its pearl 50 years ago. White only rule was wrong, no doubt about that. But the rapid transitions many countries made from colony to self-governance lead to the rise of military dictatorships and brutal civil wars. Secondly, crediting that life expectancy rose dramatically after decolonisation to the gaining of independence by these countries, is a terribly false argument. There are dozens of reasons why life expectancy rose. Meanwhile, this completely disregards the scientific progress and agricultural revolutions. However, you name decolonisation as a reason for such worldwide progress?! Mind you, developed countries in Europe enjoyed even further rise of life expectancy. Kind of disappointed in you, Crash Course. Sure, the views you're representing are popular, but your job is to tell the truth, not what people want to hear. Colonising nations did some terrible terrible things, but give them credit where it is due.
Wow, you really did your research here, TFS!! When are you going to cover the former British colonies in the West Indies and the US Western Hemisphere control over their economy from 1945 -2000?
This brief summary is well done, but completely overwhelming in terms of violence and the dark side of human nature. I hope all your crash courses don’t have the same effect on me. (Not your fault, you’re telling history in concise form, I get it). I want to learn more modern history so I’ll try more!
Fantastic work, John and team. You're making amazing educational videos and standing up to right-wing anti-scientific historical revisionism. Thank you.
@@Simon_Alexnder Science is just a word. What is and isn't science depends on where you choose to demarcate it. A dictionary won't help, as this is a fundamental problem of a field of philosophy called epistemology. If science talks about what can be known and what cannot, that will be the point of divergence, that is to say, the nature of reality. You can think of it as a spectrum, with common sense and blind belief on one end, and science on the other. That is to say: science is what common sense isn't. While positivists and empirists take the stance that science can only talk about what can be measurable in numbers and operationalized in this manner (classical formalism), most social scientists, including historians, recognize something called "social reality". That means that historians accept that there are parts of reality that, although cannot be described quantitatively, can be objectively discussed, even though they recognize its political, ideological and subjective nature. That means acceptance that subjective reality can be objectified without turning into subjectivism or relativism.
I love when this part of history because it builds up to the present so well that there’s a moment of uh oh when you realize history is still being written
What is shocking is that in British schools they never mention decolonization, even at exam level. Most of this is new to me, which is a shame because it's so important and also it's really interesting. Thank you Crash Course for another brilliant episode!
Because its not core History. If you study History at a higher level its taught. Not at foundation and for good reason. It would create a generation of apologists and 'white guilt' despite nobody being alive today being responsible.
@@jamesmichaels4979 "white guilt" is not a problem because rational people recognize that they were not the ones who supported these atrocious policies and instead learn from history and move on. That means it is crucial to learn about all aspects of history, even if you want to look away from it.
The only point i would make, is that it's not whites vs. blacks. Thats mostly american/english speak. It's every European national vs. whoever. That's what you americans don't understand.
I've been a huge fan of this series, but I have to say I found this video disappointing. This episode has clearly tried to centre the experience of the former European colonies, which is admirable. However, in the process I think it has also over-simplified the story to one of "Europe = bad". For example, former colonies being given loans could be seen as "neo-colonialism", but it was also a system that benefited both parties. The low wages of immigrants undoubtedly helped receiving countries develop, but those immigrants were also (despite the challenges of racism) able enjoy a higher standard of living. For Nasser's Egypt, being able to play the West and the USSR off against each other was a boon, enabling the country to fund projects like the Aswan Dam, which would otherwise never have been possible. Increased post-war extraction of oil allowed quality of life to rise across the world (although this would of course lead to environmental consequences). The spread of communist insurgencies across former colonies arguably owed more to Mao's PR China than it did to the USSR, etc. In short, the reality was complicated and involved a huge number of actors trying to make the choices they thought were best for them. Crash Course normally does an excellent job of embracing ambiguity and highlighting that history is often a bundle of conflicting narratives, none of which are wholly true or wholly false. I was disappointed that this video for once chose to tell a simpler and less nuanced story.
A coworker was complaining about how white south Africans were being treated but it seems to me that if you invade a country you can't expect good will when your occupation has ceased.
What country did the Boer invade? So you agree with South African Zulu king that all the Bantus have to go? All the foreign blacks in South Africa? Do you suppose we run your logic on my logic. Send me your bank account and send me money. I want you to pay for speaking my Indo-European Germanic language English. You need to pay me a tax. I see myself as the rightful heir the Anglo-Saxon and you are a degenerate peasant. If you don't believe in rule of law and people should be treated based on former acts of their father. Then you deserve genocide Everyday and no peace
@@eirikbelisarius1100 the bantu been migrating to South African for thousands of years, there literally archaeological evidence to back that up. This is just a LIE the right wing and racist use to justify the invasion of South Africa.
@@TheMagicJIZZ well you can't really talk about it being "in the past" when white people control 70% of the land and yet are 8% of the population that isn't right at ALL
The statement about colonies being better off independent thought likely true is difficult to scale as things like higher literacy rates and longer lifetimes we happening everywhere (short of maybe parts of Maoist China).
His point was not necessarily that post-colonial countries developed faster than colonies, but rather that post-colonial nations did not develop slower.
I'm curious why North and South America and Australia were not included here as European colonization was and still is very much present in these parts of the world. Is there another video about that?
This video is about post-world war II decolonization of the remaining colonial powers of Portugal, Spain, Britain, and France among other nations. South America was pretty much liberated by their own citizens in the 1800s. Mexico used to be part of the Spanish Empire and Colombia was a lot bigger under a different name. North America was what? Australia had no problem and was gradually granted Dominion status just like Canada all during the Victorian and Edwardian eras. You are asking a different category. However the post-decolonization years now in 2020 shows the true nature of Africa and Asia when given responsibility to govern themselves. Besides that in Southeast Asia the only actual substance of modernization and industrialization were not actually done by the Malay Muslims. India was partially communist and socialist till it opened up for foreign investment in the 1990s out of desperation to avoid economic and agricultural degeneration. All because of that Y2K bug did India get a chance for technological modernization through foreign investment. Yet more than 80 percent are dirt poor and not even 1 month now going hungry in their lockdown covid-19 period.
Parts this doesn't cover. In Africa - The infrastructure and technology that colonization gave lifted many lives while they were still colonies. The governments the took over ran most of that stuff into the ground. Most of these countries have had to rebuild it all, and still haven't caught up. - Contrast that with other colonies that left peacefully or still technically exist and you can see they aren't perfect, but the native populations are much much better off (and happier) than the ones who left in rebellion. - The African tribes were absolutely brutal to each other. Insanely so. The culture of fighting and war didn't come from colonization. (That's not to excuse the violence of the colonizers, just to say it was far from one sided.) - The most skilled members of decolonized countries often weren't recognized or even desired by their countries of origin. In most cases, had they stayed they would have never gotten to the point they were at, nor even come close to the same contribution to the world (or their home countries.) - Anti Immigration - Pretty much every country with a native population has had a similar racist reaction as seen in the 1950's, when the native population was in control. You can see it right now in China and most Persian Countries. It's really bad in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Believe it or not western cultures, even back in the 1950s on average treated other races much better. - Manipulation of Borrowed Resources for Dependence is a tactic as old as any warring nation. It's happened everywhere unfortunately. China is the worst at it currently followed by Critical Theory activists who not only work feverishly to do the same thing, it's taught openly. - Average Life Expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa was 40 in 1953, 50 in 1980s - These are terrible cherry picked facts. In 1940 the average life expectancy in the WORLD was 47. In the 1980s (when freed) the average WORLD life expectancy was 63. Of note, before colonization average life expectancy in that region was below 30. - They (who did attend) attended schools for longer but literacy fell dramatically, malnutrition went down across the board, including western countries. - Most of the rest is fairly accurate, the reasons for the war were horrible on all sides. Super powers always tried to keep smaller powers smaller. This is nothing new. Even tribes in Africa did this. Colonization was complex. It wasn't great, but some parts were surprisingly good. Some of the western countries have incredibly "nice" colonization based on terms of the norms of any other invading forces. The average for good treatment was absolutely higher on AVERAGE for western countries as well. This doesn't make it all justified, but criticism is often one sided mentioning how horrible the Europeans were, but never mentioning pretty much every section of humanity was worse. And in some cases a LOT worse. Finally, if you treat colonization as ALL bad, there should be an effort now to stop it from happening NOW. Because it IS happening now. But the same people who criticize it the most are often the ones who advocate it happening now if it's under their terms.
I would've liked a mention of the post-war atrocities and genocides in modern-day Indonesia by the Dutch and the subsequent atrocities and genocides committed by the Indonesian state, as one of the bigger post-colonial nations it's often overlooked, even in Dutch history books where they just talk of "police actions" instead of an oppressive military occupation in response to liberation movements all over the culturally varied islands, and how they left people who they promised safety as a trade-off for helping the Dutch behind with the obviously incoming genocides, and how those that were allowed to immigrate were put in concentration camps in The Netherlands and forbidden from working before cutting off supplies to those camps. I know it echoes a lot of the other stuff talked about, but the whitewashing of history books and absence of Dutch atrocities in international histories is still a huge problem. The VOC and its consequences are still regarded positively by many.
Normally, I find CrashCourse to be sound in their arguments, but in this episode, two reasonings bothered me especially. Firstly, using (not even always) violent colonial regimes to explain the fact that many former colonies entered an extremely violent time after gaining independence, because they supposedly have only known violent rule, is just plain stupid. This is an excuse for nations, who obviously weren't ready to govern themselves, to engulf themselves in excessive violence. Just admit it, many former colonies were not up to the task of self-governance. An example for this case is Zimbabwe, today Africa's shithole, while it was its pearl 50 years ago. White only rule was wrong, no doubt about that. But the rapid transitions many countries made from colony to self-governance lead to the rise of military dictatorships and brutal civil wars. Secondly, crediting that life expectancy rose dramatically after decolonisation to the gaining of independence by these countries, is a terribly false argument. There are dozens of reasons why life expectancy rose. Meanwhile, this completely disregards the scientific progress and agricultural revolutions. However, you name decolonisation as a reason for such worldwide progress?! Mind you, developed countries in Europe enjoyed even further rise of life expectancy. Kind of disappointed in you, Crash Course. Sure, the views you're representing are popular, but your job is to tell the truth, not what people want to hear. Colonising nations did some terrible terrible things, but give them credit where it is due.
10:22 i understand the need for political correctness, but this argument is utter garbage. over the course of 30 years they gained...10 years of life expectancy ? is it low ? is it high ? how do you know ? you need something to compare ! how much lifespan did Europeans gain in the meantime ? i'll let people think whatever they want about colonization, but if you want to answer whether they were better off as colonies you need two similar colonized areas, and check one that "stayed" a colony and one that took independence. you think there's no such thing ? wrong ! compare french Guyana with Suriname : one took its independence and is pretty much a shithole which GDP depends on drugs and gold mining, the other has decent schools, roads, security, and a spaceport. Also the Comoros are a good example, out of the four islands, three became independent while the last one (mayotte) outright refused. nowadays the Comoros are one of the poorest country in the world while Mayotte has almost the same level of comfort as mainland France, and we have to fend off and endless flow of comorians who try to sneak into mayotte to give birth there so that their kid get the right to claim french nationality. oh, fun fact : after 24 years of -nonsense- independence two of the islands actually tryed to re-join, but we gave them the middle finger. All colonizers are not equal, France had a very different policy towards its colonies than Britain for what it's worth, but those two examples show that sometimes, yes, staying with the colonizer can actually be better, clearly.
Historically Britain treated its colonies better, though slightly, than France. And anyway your argument for colonies sometimes being better doesn't remove the fact that it should not have happened, its a useless debate to say some do better now.
@@selfeven7150 don't get me wrong, but saying "it shouldn't have happened" is kind of missing the point. Is it "good" to be colonised ? Probably not, is it good for yourself to colonize others ? Economically clearly yes. Should it happen ? I don't know, but when one party becomes far more powerful than it's neighbors, it's bound to steamroll them. Not doing so would be naive and ultimately reward them for not doing what you did (ie: invest in military). So while it is morally bad from nowadays standards, it is in the end *normal* that European having mastered sailing and gunpowder overpowered a world filled with people equipped with pointy sticks Edit : oh and btw, I have doubts about your claims of the Brits treating their colonies better. Maybe they treated their british colonists better but certainly not the natives. France had notoriously better relationships with American natives at least. But whatever.
You really got the Kenyan part wrong in terms of the basic lay of events. I get it's a 5 minute thing, but Kenyan independence was an odd thing because of the disconnect between various movements. It also began far before the period you seem to be referring to. The summary probably deserves a bit more nuance like you gave to Algeria just due to the educational focus of these videos. You're also probably overstating the immediate post-ww2 migration from the colonies to the colonizing countries. The biggest wave for Britain, for example, came immediately after rebuilding.
All things are more complicated especially if you have deeper knowledge of them. This was a simple overview that got nothing wrong but couldn't dive deeper. It would be better to send people to sources that give a deeper discussion on the matter.
While China is far from innocent, comparing it to European neo colonialism is still a stretch. When it comes to African nations, Until China begins, blocking access to education, Healthcare, nutrition etc., that results in a decline or at least, a slow down of the nation's development & a decrease in life expectancy, not related to a pathogen, your idea of Chinese imperialism in Africa is illogical & without proof. Economists have seen nothing but increases in life expectancy, more wide spread access to education & Healthcare. Plus, over 40% of Sub Saharan Africa's impoverished have been lifted into the middle class over the last 20 years. All of this includes deals with China & surprisingly Russia. It's like John stated, it's a battle of which ideology benefits the most. Communism vs Capitalism. And it looks like a hybrid is forming in Africa.
Jo You Know well China buys off particularly industries to “help” with a African country’s projects and debts like transportation and energy and instead of using the country’s workers China uses their own so the country can’t benefit from the investment (except the ones in power) and as a result China technically owns that because the country owes them from paying off that depth. This doesn’t just include Africa but also several Balkan-centric countries and Sri Lanka France still has a similar neo Imperialist system with their former colonies I’m just pointing out that China can lead down that road based on their policies and similar practices by other countries. I’m also worried for the people within those countries because the most benefiting from it are either officials or China. And also their might be a form of slavery being set up from Saudi Arabia. I’m just cautious with what might happen when more authoritative groups take advantage on countries that have been dealt with a heavy hand.
@@qliphalpuzzle5453 while I can understand the approach with caution ⚠️ aspect of making deals with China. But that logic literally applies to every nation. Why get extra paranoid now because it's China. It's not irrational for China to find the best deal for itself. Just like it's not irrational for African nations to do the same. The problem here, is that SS African nations have been under strongman leadership for so long, people just assume Africa is going to make bad decisions for its people forever, despite showing two and a half decades of positive growth that is only being slowed by the EU & US blocking access to nuclear power 🔋. So the African union has to court China & Russia for this resource to super charge their economies, education & health infrastructures. China & Russia are far from ideal business & political partners, but African leadership is growing with the only options available. China courting Africa is scaring the hell out of the Western powers. It means a decrease in economic power for them. So there's a lot of misinformation about China Africa deals to stir unsupported paranoia of new colonialism. There's obvious racism, but China hiring their own doesn't support the numbers that show their are 40% less impoverished people in Africa. If China was practicing neo colonialism, there would be more SS Africans in poverty... not less.
@@qliphalpuzzle5453 furthermore, many people can't understand why is making these deals with African nations. They are not buying land for resources... They are buying United Nation votes in their favor. And China is buying its influence on the World Health Organization. They are trying to get TCM aka Traditional Chinese Medicine as seen as legitimate Healthcare, when most of it is largely pseudoscience that people believe that actually work. Maybe 10% is proven legitimate, but the rest can be harmful to the science & health illiterate.
Really disappointing that a series on European history is only used to vilify Europeans as the cause of all the worlds problems. Even the mongols didn't get such negative coverage from this channel.
@Hentai Eyes It wasn't as bad as the propaganda makes it seem. They spread freedom and values to the world. You think living under the Aztecs was peaceful?
I feel like a lot of people forget how recently all this happened. This was all within living memory; two of my grandparents were born in British colonies.
Exactly
My dad was born when South Africa was still 'n British colony. He was barely out of high school when he fought in the Angolan war of independence (South Africa sent in troops to support the Anti-communists). He jokes that "every time I walk through a metal detector, it's a little history lesson." Make of that what you will.
Boomers saw the tail end on black & white TVs, and remember it. Rebels were not painted in a favorable light, then.
It's ridiculous. I didn't learn any of this in british curriculum.
Same with segregation and Jim Crow
Please, please, consider CC History of Africa. I know it isn’t the topic most in demand, and won’t appeal to as many in the AP crowd, but gosh, it is important and it is so poorly covered everywhere, and the African countries importance globally keeps increasing. We should be a part of watching and engaging with that. Or just a modern history. Please, it shouldn’t be a footnote in talking about US and European topics.
Africa was and will stay irrelevant on the global scale for the forseable future, as will the middle east
As much as I would like to see a series about African history, I wonder how hard it is to create one, since there is little written record.
Agreed. Will love to follow that series.
So we can really bless the rains down in Africa...
@@Theturtleowl there is UNESCO General History of Africa books and they're like 10+ huge books... so I think there would be much to research for a Crash Course
CC Asian or African history should of happened before Euro history
I love when Crash Course talks about history. Decolonization was a very interesting period. When this series is over, I hope you consider doing serieses about African and Middle Eastern history. Maybe Asian history. To talk about the things they don't mention in schools about those continents
Would love an African history series!
I agree! I'd be really interested in an African, Middle Eastern, Asian and South American history series
@Jordan Nkosi African history goes far beyond that, do some research and you're in for a lot of interesting stories
Jordan Nkosi no.
Jordan Nkosi the history of the entire world is mostly people having petty wars and slavery. Africa is no exception because africans are humans. Africa has many other things though, and i’d encourage you to atleast read a wikipedia page before you spread garbage. I don’t know how someone named “Nkosi” could say so many false things about Africa.
France :we lost to the nazis but we can recover
Vietnam : prepare for trouble
Algeria :and make it double
Algerians got their asses kicked
Only the vietnamese won their independence militarily
Yeah and now both these countries are shithole whose populations are fleeing to western countries.
@@justwannabehappy6735 your racism knows no bound. Especially given how the video literally explained how the West warmongering and cold war politics basically continue to systematically abuse these nations after decolonization.
@@Pirantsable nobody like the ideal of death well maybe Trump supporters but their not even mentally grow up or are sick people
@@justwannabehappy6735 Did you not just watch the video? Just here to troll?
I would love to see more about neo-colonialism, neo-imperialism, and decolonization. It's super unfortunate that we don't get to learn much about it in school.
You know you are allowed to read things outside of school?
@@user-yv2cz8oj1k With an 8 hours a day school schedule, homework, extracurriculars, chores and even a job, who has the time?
I wonder if they're going to cover the break-up of Yugoslavia later in the series.
I hope they'll cover it. People too often overlook how brutal and sad those wars were and those same probems still exist in the balkans today
I'm guessing they'll cover it in an episode about the collapse of the USSR.
@@dainironfoot5198 Yugoslavia is completely different to the USSR so it would make zero sense to put it in a fall of USSR episode
It's completely bizzare that they didn't mention either Yugoslavia or the Non-Aligned movement in this exact video. I love Crash Course and I watch every episode since way back when, but at times the writing is painfuly west-centric. If they only mention Yugoslavia in passing when USSR collapses it'll be completely stupid and misguided, because Yugoslavia by that point had nothing much to do with the USSR for something like 30 or so years. Countries which were in the USSR sphere of influence didn't have horrible, bloody civil wars when the USSR collapsed, and you could barely even call Yugoslavia socialist by the time the 80-ties rolled around, let alone the 90-ties.
Luka Kordić I find this series on Europe hugely disappointing, they are literally more concentrating on colonies like Chile or Cuba in 18th century wars episode than on partition of Poland, it was literally a footnote "by the way Poland was partitioned several times, meanwhile Britain kept other colonies besides US milking their resources..." I get it they have agenda that Europe is evil colonizer, but there were other things that were happening and shaped history of the world. Decolonization is really relevant topic in European context, but they are glossing over some of defining events in history. I find it troubling when narrative about European history gives more attention on how boring it was working in a factory than wars and rebellions and creation of new countries.
As a Trinidadian, I didn't expect to learn that one of us had that part to play in The Beatles. 🇹🇹
me either. I was shocked! Trinibagoians are all over the world and a part of every world history.
I just showed my mother. Her two best friends are from Jamaica. Now, she can tell her friends, Jamaica may have had Bob Marley, but Trinidad had the Beatles!
@@LuinTathren lol
great thanks now I'm going to be repeating Trinidadian to myself all day thanks lol I can't get over the way it sounds
I saw a picture on instagram of Dr. Eric Williams his wife together with John Lennon , Cynthia Lennon & Ringo Starr in Trinidad and was wondering how did that meet up manage to happen. Hearing this adds some background & context to the Beatles relationship with T&T.
France: Algeria? You mean a colony - I mean - an integral part of the country that should not try to gain independence.
De Gaulle: Alright, time for a new constitution.
what changes did he do? I'm genuinely curious. Was colonization specifically allowed in European constitutions at the time?
@@wanitooo Algeria was a special case. There were many European French in Algeirs, and hence De Gaulle wanted to curb the law to be able to integrate Algeria as a core part of France. (also nuke testing hee hee)
Also, it was because french generals in Algiers attemps to do a putch and threat metropolitan France (they reached Corsica) that the IVth French Republic call back De Gaulle to power as he was the only personnality strong enough to enforce stability and gain respect to the military commanders. It would need a full episode solely on the Algeria War to explain it properly from the french side and another to explain properly from the algerian side. It was a terrible conflict but a very interesting one to analyse with a lot of consequences today.
Short answer is France STILL wanted their empire and went through two Constitutions to give legitimacy to that such as the French Union and the successor French Community...
As an Algerian I can confirm this
Very good video. Too bad they don't teach this in school.
Which school
The problem in Syria is that France left in 1946 but with actions that seem not so innocent , they left the government and the army under the control of a group of minority which caused a state of instability which lasts till now . l admit as a Syrian that we have a lot of problems in our society that needed to be fixed but the role that France played was crucial even after 66 years during the Syrian civil war which started as protests against the regime . lt seems to me and to most Syrians that the super powers left us with 2 choices either the safety under a totalitarian regime or mass distraction , the war in Syria is a new phase of the cold war by my humble opinion .
Great work Mr.John l really like the content you offer us and it changed the way l look to history through ,as always best wishes
Same thing France did here in Morocco,and i cay say Algerie and tunisia too
What should the French have done in ‘46?
The victim mentality is getting super old.
aratosm
Poor colonials powers waaa go cry somewhere else!
@@LowellMorgan trying to leave some kind of democratic civilian government behind , this would have helped to make things go in more peaceful manner , but at that time France's leaders saw syria just as ethnic and religious groups , at that time most super powers saw the less developed countries like this unfortunately.
It’s amazing that we have gotten to point where some of these figures are still alive. It makes me think about how they see the world today and what they think of the worlds current circumstance.
Coronavirus: hold my beer.
Google Ian Smith. Former white president of Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. Under his (racist) rule, the African nation was one of the wealthiest countries on the continent, with extraordinary high standards of living for all races. He was eventually deposed by military dictator Mugabe, who managed to wreck Zimbabwe's economy. The country has become a shithole since then, and is one of the poorest in Africa. Really interesting story, especially because this history is so recent and there is lots of material to find on it.
I'd love to see you guys dive into American history and I'm not talking about the US, you already did that. But I mean Latin America, Canada, and the Caribbean islands.
ThT would be a 5 min video of unimportant history
@@brent123456yo how is it unimportant history?
@@brent123456yo I feel that it would be important to cover that.
@@brent123456yo You're unimportant history
@@brent123456yo what are u talking about? Latin America is filled with history.
Ive been watching Crash Course for nearly a decade now, and somehow the subject matter and coverage of it seems only to have improved!
It's has becomed political. The narrative is not neutral anymore. Not an improvement. Statements that are highly debated and controversial are stated as facts. I understand that they have to simplify things but... As a European interested in European history I'm disappointed of the very simplistic Americanized lens they use.
@@eirikbelisarius1100 as someone who does not study history, do you mind explaining what you are referring to?
@@eirikbelisarius1100 there's no such thing as a neutral worldview. To pretend one side is equally as valid as the other is a form of bias itself. "Political" is just a club you're using to attack something you disagree with. Historical narratives that match your worldview I doubt you'd ever call political since you're "right".
@@Famalamri Well. He presents immigration to Europe as a plot to exploit people from the colonies. They are again victimized. Very simplistic. The immigrants have been given every chance in the countries they have chosen to immigrate to.
The Bengal famine: It's not a clear cut case how at fault the British administrators were. Burma was invades by the Japanese at the time. The resources of the region were evacuated to avoid it coming into the hands of the invaders (like the Russians did). Later it was very difficult to send aid when the situation became clear because, you know, Britain was fighting for its life against tyranny (Germany and Japan). They had their resources stretched and the Japanese navy was a danger to any shipping.
The Mau Mau in Kenya were really brutal. They ambushed white settlements and killed everyone. They believed that their rituals made them bullet proof. Really crazy things. The respons was brutal, but by far not as brutal as what they responded to.
To blame the Europeans for the sectarian violence in Africa after decolonization is not really fair. That's what you get when you mix tribal warfare with AK47s.
And to use the statistics that things have improved in Africa after 1950 as proof of how terrible things used to be. Well, things have improved in Europe too in the same timeframe. The world has improved. It doesen't prove anything. You might say that those nations that continued to build on the frame that the colonizers built by far have had more improvements than those nations that didn't.
@@kylewilliams8114 Facts matter. To present pros AND cons matter. To present things that are really debatable and by no way clear cut as simple facts are disingenuous.
I've always found the example of decolonialisation in Congo enlightening, a thorough book about that was written by David van Reybrouck
Geez, that book was awesome!
Would love to see you expand more on Latin America's response to the to neo-colonialist projects and rebellion in the 60s and 70s as well as the post-colonial state of the Caribean and the current neo-colonial projects china currently have in parts of Africa and the Caribbean
It's important to note that it isn't just China trying to exploit the developing world, pretty much every country and NGO is trying to do the same and just like China they hide their true desires behind the vail of "Aid" and infrastructure development loans
@@obviouslyniceduh5521 Devils in the details, are those infrastructure loans really the same as predatory IMF loans? Look at what China's done with the debts its owed during Coronavirus vs what the world bank and the USA is doing with the debts its owed
@@obviouslyniceduh5521
Cringe.
+
While Latin America’s response to neo-colonialism is very important from a global standpoint, it is less integral to the history of Europe, which is the core of this series. Latin America was very much under US hegemony, and their Cold War politics were wrapped up much closer with US foreign policy than European policy.
The world globe didn't open.
Thats because this whole episode was the globe opening up, haha
it didn't want to....
its a stupid feature anyway.
I´d wish he would just dispense with all those forced "format" elements.
He´isnt that good at comedy, and his channel is dependent on facts and narratives.
All that "though bubble/world globe ect" stuff is a habit from no-content youtubers trying to build fandom that way.
Its just unwieldy and superflous in an educational channel, I feel.
@@nilesbutler8638 yea thats facts. I will say that thought bubble is good, but everything else is cringy and unnecessary. Glad someone said smth abt this
@@nilesbutler8638 It worked better when they were trying to have a bit more fun with Crash Course. They gave this series too serious a tone in my opinion.
Famously and apocryphally: "Mr. Gandhi, What do you think of western civilization?" "I think it would be a very good idea."
Haha I think that went over most people’s heads
@Sweetbutter Cupcakes love it when people get offended and start attacking someone's character when they don't know how to criticize their ideology
@@labi2999 good point. Have you heard Gandhi's ideology about black people?
@@babscabs1987 Gandhi as a young man was racist. However as he grew old he changed as a person. As an old man he many time spoke about the rights of black people in countries like USA.
Please read real history, not bullishit propaganda served to you by Hindu nationalists and racist Europeans.
@Sweetbutter Cupcakes I'm sorry snowflake, it is indeed British propaganda.
There were multiple times I felt like breaking into tears throughout this video.
Lookup "Francafrique." France never left Africa, they only went behind a curtain.
Damn, you beat me to it. Great point, mate.
In the same way you can search for Chinafrique too
Maxence Barré yeah, the only difference being is that it's investment rather than colonization and only the Europeans are bragging about it everywhere.
Disappointed that Ireland's struggle to escape colonial rule wasn't mentioned but very important to teach people about the tyrannical rule of England over Kenya and India when they tried to gain freedom. We rarely hear about the history of Asian and African countries in the western world.
Yeah I was just thinking about that maybe it's because Ireland is predominantly white and ppl connect colonization and immigration with colored races(which is true but not completely)..but I'm glad they mentioned Bengal Famine it's pretty big deal in India and a reason why most ppl think that Churchill was just as bad as Hitler if not worse.
Ireland is a fantastic case study on the racial contradictions inherent to colonialism. By being the first colonial subjects of the British, kinda proved that they will make racist racial barriers to anyone who is different from them, black white asian Indian. The point was colonialism. The racism that lives today is almost worse because it’s been uprooted from its colonial history. But the IRAs love for the PLA and the Black Panther Party really show that decolonization was a multi racial multi ethnic battle. Still gotta Free Belfast and Palestine tho 💕
South Africa too was a massive asterisk in this episode. As were the Baltic states and Poland along with several other eastern bloc countries who far from experiencing a decolonisation in this period were subject to a new form of colonialism from Russia / The USSR. Indeed the whole episode barely scratches the surface when we look at places like Ireland, Latin America, Turkey, ETA, Morocco Indonesia even Australia and New Zealand. Heck even countries like China who had been colonised were often embarking on their pwn colonial projects in the middle of the last century. To say nothing of the erosion of the rights of Treaty nations in the Us and Canada or the Pacific.
I think i whilst it is fair to say that colonialism receded in the post war period to some extent but suggest that it went away is an incomplete picture at best.
It should be clarified that Ireland was never a colony. The British Empire was created by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Irish soldiers, sailors, civil servants and politicians all participated in the creation and administration of the British Empire, as did the English, Scots and Welsh.
They definitely skipped over Ireland because there are white.
Similarly the Independence of the US was a footnote in this series, imagine if John never mentioned France in the the US series.
Nor did they talk about Greece gaining independce from the Ottoman. My ancestors had my of the same committed against them but I guess it doesn't help sell the narrative.
Funmilayo did the fashion clothing right. Preserve the color and patterns. Though she was saving heritage she was indirectly saving creativity against uniformity in the long run.
I'm a nearly 50 year old Brit and even now I still find out new awful things my country did in the past that we were never taught in school. It's shameful.
UK is the Island of the AntiChrist/Dajjal. Research it. 👍
@@paktiger79a62 ayo sounds rad I should move to Britain, hail Satan
It’s not shameful, we came, we saw, we conquered. Human life is overrated and I’m proud of the Empire, I wish less weak willed people like yourself where around back then so we would still have it.
The conservatives in your country have destroyed many books and government reports to promote the idea that Great Britain. Most of the history about countries like India, Indonesia and countries in West Africa taught in European schools is derived from the works of racist Victorian 'Orientalists' who suppressed local historians and made the colonies look backward. Most of the colonies were advanced civilizations that were brought down by Islamic and Mongol Invasions making way for Europeans.
@@yj9032 every country teaches it's nationalistic jingoism, even the now independent colonies, but if you actually go to a library or a book shop you can still read what really happened. You make it sound like there is a campaign to destroy books, there simply isn't, but we are seeing less people read physical copies, entirely different thing. And to put England down as being evil? If they were evil they would have joined forces with the German forces instead of fighting them in WW2, marched their troops into India and started slaughtering the entire population for expansion room.
Thank you for this video. This was a huge gap in history I wasn’t aware of. The formation of the modern world is real fascinating to learn about.
Crash Course: "India and Pakistan were the first countries to decolonize."
Indonesia: "Am I a joke to you?"
The effects of partition are still being felt in India and Pakistan
And Bangladesh.
And Ireland
Thank you John and Crash Course team. As a child of a former French Colony living in France, my history lessons in school never depicted the history of my family and myself. It is truly wonderful to feel like a true part of history and specifically European History.
Hey John Green, I just want to say thank you for helping me on my ap European history, I had the test last week and before the test I watched all these videos and made the test a piece of cake! Thank you!
Really great to see the Fanon reference here. I recommend his book, "The Wretched of the Earth" on this topic. Also another read in this area in Kwame Nkrumah's "Neo-colonialism".
"Steve Biko - I Write What I Like" is also excellent. If you enjoyed Fanon you will enjoy that book
thank you for not leaving out the costs paid by freedom fighters
I am thankful to crash course for not glossing over the partition.
My grandfather still remembers it. Him and his family barely made it to India.
You used Indonesia's declaration of independece photos in 0:11 but failed to mention any of its history, also there's no mention of the Asia-Africa Conference (Bandung Conference) that was significant in creating a new narration for third world countries and the progress of decolonization.
People who are going to try to justify colonialism and imperialism incoming. You know they're attracted to channels like this like flies to honey.
Every damn time..
Only when people who base any findings on use of critical theory, which is even more ridiculous and cult like than Scientology.
@Jordan Nkosi I don't ignore them. As a matter of fact I've read a number books about those subjects.
@Jordan Nkosi Any news on when someone more interesting will replace you specifically? Is there a "replace Jordan Nkosi" fund I can donate to, or something?
France didn't really see Algeria as a colony. They saw it as a vital part of France, thats why they fought so hard to keep it.
it was an intergreated part of France. It was French soil, not a French colony.
People fail to understand this.
@@Inucroft that's what the French believed, it wasn't true.
@@georgelane6350 from an administrative and legal pov it was. It wasn't treated like other colonies and was french for a longer time than Savoy or Alsace-Lorraine. By the end of the conflict algerian got offered proper full french citizenship, and a big number of algerian fought for France. (France then abandonned those fighter to the new regime and a lot of them were massacred, it is one of the biggest national shame in France)
03germas I don’t know if you know this, but Algeria is not part of France.
If you're going to (rightly, I add) call out European atrocities in Kenya and Algeria, you got to do more than just ignore atrocities committed by the Mau Mau. Historical truth, as you used to say, resists simplicity.
I was going to comment something similar. He rather whitewashes the Mau Mau here, being anti-colonial /= being good.
seems like nitpicking, especially considering the nationwide scale of CENTURIES of brutality caused systematically by a government as opposed to an uncoordinated, guerrilla warfare style resistance group. centrism, in this case is illogical
@@sadderall8
The Mau Mau ate their grandmothers.
@@sadderall8 In studying and remembering history, we should not decide to forget parts of the truth just because they do not suit our narratives.
Yeah this is extremely one-sided. The FLN was notoriously brutal as well.
I always appreciate the compassion with which John presents these difficult topeics.
9:39 "[...] receiving nations benefited from this immigration."
Ah, yes. Rich industrialists getting to employ cheaper labor, while nothing changes for the average middle-class person, is also how I see benefit to my nation.
And the reduction of wages which had been rising due to the shortage of labour. It was said you could walk out of one job on a Friday and into another job on the Monday.
They also do have to consume, things like housing and food, meaning that other people have to work to provide it. Plus they can send remittances and in a fairly democratic and individualistic way, not controlled by any country's president or party, make economic choices and develop a need for inclusivity in their home countries, making them better and also desiring more of the things the host country can make.
And your industries are only rich the way you say they are if your workers' rights and immigrants rights are bad and the latter have legal statuses that make it easy to exploit them, like unsecure visa protections dependent on constant renewal rather than long term investment and breaking cycles of exploitation, and if your economic system in general poorly protects the economy from concentrated capital, failing to promote cooperatives for instance.
@@robertjarman3703 Their consumption increases demand for certain goods, which raises their price and further lower the real wages of the local working class. The only ones to benefit from this are the employers who get to may lower wages and sell at higher prices.
As for remittances, I'm sure they benefit their home countries, but that's beside the point, John said immigrants benefited the host countries.
@@leobat7007 Only if as I said before if you are bad at having things like unions and cooperatives.
And I explained why a remittance can help the developed countries as well as a growing economy there drives demand for what the developed economies can provide.
Actually lots changes cheeper goods people filing lower wage jobs allowing for increased production
I was waiting for you to mention the Philippines as the US granted us the independence that they stole from us in 1898. American decolonization of the Philippines was a mere illusion as the US still imposed biased trade policies, loans, had a military base, and left us with a colonial mentality. hundreds of years under foreign occupation sure did left an impact that no foreigners could really comprehend. I just want the world to acknowledge the mistakes done by the abusers in the past.
I 🤯didn't know this!
That is one point of view. Half of Filipinos wish that the Yankees would have stayed, at least at Subic Bay and Clark Air Force Base.
I’ve never heard of this before, thank you.
This is European History, but I am not sure if this is noted in the US history playlist.
well maybe they should include the Philippines decolonization from Spain and then America. and wow I never knew America colonized the Philippines, I learned something new thanks!
Vietnam: please leave
USA: fortunate son gets louder.
South Vietnamese: please stay.
Reeducation camps: happened.
South Vietnam wanted the US.
Fortunate Son is an anti-war song though...
@@stza16 The leaders of SV wanted the U.S. because they where puppets.
@@stza16 that "help" didn't do much, a lot like every other country the US has "helped"
ive been waiting for this one for years. thanks guys
John, when are going to do a video about how the Mongols did all the things that other groups couldn't do?
This was by far my favorite on this series. I am from Kenya and you talked about it
Please define what is "peace" ....when we talk about decolonization
I wonder if anyone knows the story of Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti? Well, first, her son was probably the most influential African musician in all of the 20th Century, Fela Kuti. Kuti formed the independent Kalakuta Republic. The Nigerian government sent soldiers, who threw Funmilayo out of a window to her death. The family's story is incredibly compelling, and Fela Kuti's music is extraordinary.
John, I had no idea you were on this channel. You were my favorite presenter on Mental Floss.
Ahhhh, you're in for a happy surprise. Crash Course is one of John Green's MANY projects with his brother, Hank. He's been making videos with Crash Course for years.
I haven’t been watching crash course history for awhile but I’m so glad I came across this specific episode. Thank you crash course for educating us! I didn’t learn any of this in British education system.
Britain: Loves spreading the white man's burden.
Gandhi: I'm going to end this whole man's tea time.
@Keshav Why did I know I'd find some Hindu nationalists here? What's the matter, hating on Nehru not enough so you have to smear Bapu as well? And of course the ever popular if unsubstantiated idea that the Fauj actually got anywhere (also ironic since Bose actually admired Gandhi). Go back to worshiping your bois Savarkar (pretty ironic to be worshiping in his case, given his own atheism) and Godse please.
@@ArawnOfAnnwn I think he (Gandhi) was not a "anti hindu " but was a staunch racist and called the lower caste and blacks as "k*ffirs" , when the British supported the lower caste to vote (one of the only few things British did good in india), Gandhi strongly opposed it, he believed in "Aryan brotherhood", basically Nazism with North Indians as "superior" as Europeans, why do you think Gandhi's statues are now being taken down in african countries?
I'm jonesing for #44, this series has been awesome
Please do a series on the history of communism, e.g. USSR, Mao, etc., including Soviet imperialism.
Will this series speculate on the future of Europe or just finish off on contemporary Europe?
There are aspects of this series that i feel are very americanised or one sided, which i feel is a bad thing, beng that the show is called Crash Course European History.
I was looking forward to this episode because i feel that from the colonial wars are a bit more morally ambigous than they might seem. I am bit disappointed because it is a far more complex issue than explained, at least from the view of the people at the time.
For example, the portuguese people were taught by the fascist regime that the colonies, weren't colonies, they were provinces, like the various regions of Portugal itself, so when they were called (obligated) to go to war, they believed that they were defending their own nation. Salazar convinced everyone that what they were doing was right, and sent thousands of young men to die in a meatgrinder. It was a conflict that could be avoided by diplomacy, thousands of portuguese, guinean, angolan and mozambican lives could have been saved. The Colonial Wars are seen in Portugal as Portugal's Vietnam, it completely defined the generation that fought in this war. Europe isn't just France and the UK.
I also feel that mentioning the problems faced by the europeans living the colonies after their independence could have been importante. Yes, there was imigration, but there also were millions of people returning to Europe, after losing everything they had in africa. These people also suffered discrimination when they arrived in Europe, their supposed homeland, they were basically refugees. But the video decides to go with the black and white thought of "Europe Bad", by just focusing on the drama of the arriving africans, which i am not disregarding by no means. Although i believe their integration wasn't as well made as the video makes it out to be.
Finally, i think that mentioning that there were still fascist regimes in Europe during this time period was important, because in a way they were the reason that some of these wars happened the way they did.
TL:DR The video is very reductive in the morals of the wars fought, and doesn't show the drama these events also represented to europeans. Also, the video focuses only in the UK and in France, which is wrong.
Note: english is not my native language, there might be grammatical errors spinkled through this comment.
It's a 13 minute video, not a PhD thesis my guy
They didn't even got time to talk about the Francozone and the neocolonialism that to this day still happens in how the French Central Bank can offload interest rates and debt to african countries.
Decolonization spanned the entire planet, hard to cover it all on a 13 minute video, though they did do a very good and dignified job
I agree. While crash course European history has great quality in general, as with their other courses, it often shows an obvious American perspective
Well said
If you colonize a country for 132 years what do want when you forced to leave a trophy.
Now that the European history chapter is almost at its end, I think you should make another series for Asian history chapter
Could you do a crash course on hongkong and taiwan? Curious about that..
China is colonizing both as well as Thailand, Canada, Australia, New Zealand...
This was very informative and should be shown in history classes for all high schools. 20 years ago, when I was a history nerd in HS, America was portrayed as bigot and racist after WW2 (which was true), but Europeans were some how portrayed as not bigoted or racist (which was not true). Most of that is because we focus too much on the U.S equal rights and racial overcoming of the 1960s and beyond in history post WW2. Wish we learned more about this stuff back then.
Racism in America was much more institutionalized than in Europe. Europe was trying to hold onto colonies not because of racism but because of economics. Trying to down play racism in America by making false comparisons to Europe is shamefull.
This video is not the whole story though.
It is heavily emphasized on the suffering of the colonized.
Sony Ber yes because those colonies suffered more
Such a great overview of this period, it is breath taking to me that we do not learn this in history classes at school (and when we do get taught this era of history it is from one or two Euro-centric perspectives!)
An1e3 reality is biased towards liberal
The particular data and arguments used to contest alleged benefits of colonization were very weak. Improvement post decolonization does not particularly address if colonization was beneficial, especially in a period of history where such metrics were dramatically improving everywhere. Mind you, I am not saying the thesis is wrong, but you do no service giving unconvincing and flawed evidence.
Completely agree! Normally, I find CrashCourse to be sound in their arguments, but in this episode, two reasonings bothered me especially. Firstly, using (not even always) violent colonial regimes to explain the fact that many former colonies entered an extremely violent time after gaining independence, because they supposedly have only known violent rule, is just plain stupid. This is an excuse for nations, who obviously weren't ready to govern themselves, to engulf themselves in excessive violence. Just admit it, many former colonies were not up to the task of self-governance. An example for this case is Zimbabwe, today Africa's shithole, while it was its pearl 50 years ago. White only rule was wrong, no doubt about that. But the rapid transitions many countries made from colony to self-governance lead to the rise of military dictatorships and brutal civil wars.
Secondly, crediting that life expectancy rose dramatically after decolonisation to the gaining of independence by these countries, is a terribly false argument. There are dozens of reasons why life expectancy rose. Meanwhile, this completely disregards the scientific progress and agricultural revolutions. However, you name decolonisation as a reason for such worldwide progress?! Mind you, developed countries in Europe enjoyed even further rise of life expectancy.
Kind of disappointed in you, Crash Course. Sure, the views you're representing are popular, but your job is to tell the truth, not what people want to hear. Colonising nations did some terrible terrible things, but give them credit where it is due.
You two really are trying to justify colonization... Incredible mental gymnastics you're doing there.
Wow, you really did your research here, TFS!! When are you going to cover the former British colonies in the West Indies and the US Western Hemisphere control over their economy from 1945 -2000?
This brief summary is well done, but completely overwhelming in terms of violence and the dark side of human nature. I hope all your crash courses don’t have the same effect on me. (Not your fault, you’re telling history in concise form, I get it). I want to learn more modern history so I’ll try more!
Thank you for this, John.
This was so well done, thank you!
Fantastic work, John and team. You're making amazing educational videos and standing up to right-wing anti-scientific historical revisionism. Thank you.
Wtf is "scientific history"? Is it just left wing history?
@@Simon_Alexnder Science is just a word. What is and isn't science depends on where you choose to demarcate it. A dictionary won't help, as this is a fundamental problem of a field of philosophy called epistemology. If science talks about what can be known and what cannot, that will be the point of divergence, that is to say, the nature of reality. You can think of it as a spectrum, with common sense and blind belief on one end, and science on the other. That is to say: science is what common sense isn't. While positivists and empirists take the stance that science can only talk about what can be measurable in numbers and operationalized in this manner (classical formalism), most social scientists, including historians, recognize something called "social reality". That means that historians accept that there are parts of reality that, although cannot be described quantitatively, can be objectively discussed, even though they recognize its political, ideological and subjective nature. That means acceptance that subjective reality can be objectified without turning into subjectivism or relativism.
I love when this part of history because it builds up to the present so well that there’s a moment of uh oh when you realize history is still being written
What is shocking is that in British schools they never mention decolonization, even at exam level. Most of this is new to me, which is a shame because it's so important and also it's really interesting. Thank you Crash Course for another brilliant episode!
Because its not core History. If you study History at a higher level its taught. Not at foundation and for good reason. It would create a generation of apologists and 'white guilt' despite nobody being alive today being responsible.
@@jamesmichaels4979 "white guilt" is not a problem because rational people recognize that they were not the ones who supported these atrocious policies and instead learn from history and move on. That means it is crucial to learn about all aspects of history, even if you want to look away from it.
Good timing with this video
Next playlist do History of Africa.
parts of africa hadnt invented the wheel before europeans arrived in the victorian era, african history can be summed up with two words 'ooga booga'
Connections with community is paramount as we move forward with better works of health, climate and tools.
Where's my Multatuli at? He's the writer of Max Havelaar, also known as "the book that killed colonialism".
Indië verloren
Rampspoed geboren
Hidoep Indonesia Raya
You're 100 years wrong
‘That divide to continuing conquering strategy’ is alive an well. Please Remember that when u are told another is to blame for your problem.
The only point i would make, is that it's not whites vs. blacks. Thats mostly american/english speak. It's every European national vs. whoever. That's what you americans don't understand.
Always wonderful; thank you very much for the knowledge. Also, I had no idea who Frantz Fanon was and now I´m gonna read all his books!!!
I've been a huge fan of this series, but I have to say I found this video disappointing. This episode has clearly tried to centre the experience of the former European colonies, which is admirable. However, in the process I think it has also over-simplified the story to one of "Europe = bad". For example, former colonies being given loans could be seen as "neo-colonialism", but it was also a system that benefited both parties. The low wages of immigrants undoubtedly helped receiving countries develop, but those immigrants were also (despite the challenges of racism) able enjoy a higher standard of living. For Nasser's Egypt, being able to play the West and the USSR off against each other was a boon, enabling the country to fund projects like the Aswan Dam, which would otherwise never have been possible. Increased post-war extraction of oil allowed quality of life to rise across the world (although this would of course lead to environmental consequences). The spread of communist insurgencies across former colonies arguably owed more to Mao's PR China than it did to the USSR, etc.
In short, the reality was complicated and involved a huge number of actors trying to make the choices they thought were best for them. Crash Course normally does an excellent job of embracing ambiguity and highlighting that history is often a bundle of conflicting narratives, none of which are wholly true or wholly false. I was disappointed that this video for once chose to tell a simpler and less nuanced story.
The job of every Leftist is to destroy Western Civilization and all its attributes. John is a master at this game.
@@perrywidhalm114 If you were trying to troll, could you at least be funny?
Perry Widhalm don’t bring more polotics into this
This couldn't have come at a better time as I'm writing my thesis on the Colonial memory and ghost
Beard hairs: Hmmm... This face looks like it's worth colonising...
John Green's Face: Freedom! 🏴
A
s a kenyan I can tell you it is nice seeing and hearing our story told.
And as an American. Thank y’all for giving us president Obama.
To be fair I think the Japanese share at least some of the blame for the Bengal Famine.
Thank you for this crash course very informative
The correct title for the video: British decolonization.
@Reg Eric It is missing the dutch, the italian, the belgian, the portuguese
I can't wait for Balkan episode
The speed of your delivery has been excellent which used to be so fast for second language learner. Thanks for the great videos.
Please make a video explaining the relationship between Latinamerica and the US during the Cold War.
A coworker was complaining about how white south Africans were being treated but it seems to me that if you invade a country you can't expect good will when your occupation has ceased.
What country did the Boer invade? So you agree with South African Zulu king that all the Bantus have to go? All the foreign blacks in South Africa?
Do you suppose we run your logic on my logic.
Send me your bank account and send me money. I want you to pay for speaking my Indo-European Germanic language English. You need to pay me a tax. I see myself as the rightful heir the Anglo-Saxon and you are a degenerate peasant.
If you don't believe in rule of law and people should be treated based on former acts of their father. Then you deserve genocide Everyday and no peace
The Boers and the Bantu peoples arrived approximately at the same time. Who should back their bags and leave?
@@eirikbelisarius1100 the bantu been migrating to South African for thousands of years, there literally archaeological evidence to back that up. This is just a LIE the right wing and racist use to justify the invasion of South Africa.
@@TheMagicJIZZ well you can't really talk about it being "in the past" when white people control 70% of the land and yet are 8% of the population that isn't right at ALL
Hope you guys bring back another season of Crash Course Literature!
The statement about colonies being better off independent thought likely true is difficult to scale as things like higher literacy rates and longer lifetimes we happening everywhere (short of maybe parts of Maoist China).
His point was not necessarily that post-colonial countries developed faster than colonies, but rather that post-colonial nations did not develop slower.
@2:25 should have include Jinnah in the footage.
My only criticism is that you solely focus on the British. There's more Europeans in the mix in this time line besides French and British
I'm curious why North and South America and Australia were not included here as European colonization was and still is very much present in these parts of the world. Is there another video about that?
This video is about post-world war II decolonization of the remaining colonial powers of Portugal, Spain, Britain, and France among other nations. South America was pretty much liberated by their own citizens in the 1800s. Mexico used to be part of the Spanish Empire and Colombia was a lot bigger under a different name. North America was what? Australia had no problem and was gradually granted Dominion status just like Canada all during the Victorian and Edwardian eras. You are asking a different category. However the post-decolonization years now in 2020 shows the true nature of Africa and Asia when given responsibility to govern themselves. Besides that in Southeast Asia the only actual substance of modernization and industrialization were not actually done by the Malay Muslims. India was partially communist and socialist till it opened up for foreign investment in the 1990s out of desperation to avoid economic and agricultural degeneration. All because of that Y2K bug did India get a chance for technological modernization through foreign investment. Yet more than 80 percent are dirt poor and not even 1 month now going hungry in their lockdown covid-19 period.
Parts this doesn't cover.
In Africa
- The infrastructure and technology that colonization gave lifted many lives while they were still colonies. The governments the took over ran most of that stuff into the ground. Most of these countries have had to rebuild it all, and still haven't caught up.
- Contrast that with other colonies that left peacefully or still technically exist and you can see they aren't perfect, but the native populations are much much better off (and happier) than the ones who left in rebellion.
- The African tribes were absolutely brutal to each other. Insanely so. The culture of fighting and war didn't come from colonization. (That's not to excuse the violence of the colonizers, just to say it was far from one sided.)
- The most skilled members of decolonized countries often weren't recognized or even desired by their countries of origin. In most cases, had they stayed they would have never gotten to the point they were at, nor even come close to the same contribution to the world (or their home countries.)
- Anti Immigration - Pretty much every country with a native population has had a similar racist reaction as seen in the 1950's, when the native population was in control. You can see it right now in China and most Persian Countries. It's really bad in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Believe it or not western cultures, even back in the 1950s on average treated other races much better.
- Manipulation of Borrowed Resources for Dependence is a tactic as old as any warring nation. It's happened everywhere unfortunately. China is the worst at it currently followed by Critical Theory activists who not only work feverishly to do the same thing, it's taught openly.
- Average Life Expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa was 40 in 1953, 50 in 1980s - These are terrible cherry picked facts. In 1940 the average life expectancy in the WORLD was 47. In the 1980s (when freed) the average WORLD life expectancy was 63. Of note, before colonization average life expectancy in that region was below 30.
- They (who did attend) attended schools for longer but literacy fell dramatically, malnutrition went down across the board, including western countries.
- Most of the rest is fairly accurate, the reasons for the war were horrible on all sides. Super powers always tried to keep smaller powers smaller. This is nothing new. Even tribes in Africa did this.
Colonization was complex. It wasn't great, but some parts were surprisingly good.
Some of the western countries have incredibly "nice" colonization based on terms of the norms of any other invading forces. The average for good treatment was absolutely higher on AVERAGE for western countries as well.
This doesn't make it all justified, but criticism is often one sided mentioning how horrible the Europeans were, but never mentioning pretty much every section of humanity was worse. And in some cases a LOT worse.
Finally, if you treat colonization as ALL bad, there should be an effort now to stop it from happening NOW. Because it IS happening now. But the same people who criticize it the most are often the ones who advocate it happening now if it's under their terms.
"Most Persian countries"?
There are Persian countries other than Iran?
Yep. Rhodesia was the breadbasket of Africa, and they wrecked it. And the same fate is now happening to South Africa.
I would've liked a mention of the post-war atrocities and genocides in modern-day Indonesia by the Dutch and the subsequent atrocities and genocides committed by the Indonesian state, as one of the bigger post-colonial nations it's often overlooked, even in Dutch history books where they just talk of "police actions" instead of an oppressive military occupation in response to liberation movements all over the culturally varied islands, and how they left people who they promised safety as a trade-off for helping the Dutch behind with the obviously incoming genocides, and how those that were allowed to immigrate were put in concentration camps in The Netherlands and forbidden from working before cutting off supplies to those camps.
I know it echoes a lot of the other stuff talked about, but the whitewashing of history books and absence of Dutch atrocities in international histories is still a huge problem. The VOC and its consequences are still regarded positively by many.
the absence of atrocities in history books, is almost a general rule of thumb :(
Normally, I find CrashCourse to be sound in their arguments, but in this episode, two reasonings bothered me especially. Firstly, using (not even always) violent colonial regimes to explain the fact that many former colonies entered an extremely violent time after gaining independence, because they supposedly have only known violent rule, is just plain stupid. This is an excuse for nations, who obviously weren't ready to govern themselves, to engulf themselves in excessive violence. Just admit it, many former colonies were not up to the task of self-governance. An example for this case is Zimbabwe, today Africa's shithole, while it was its pearl 50 years ago. White only rule was wrong, no doubt about that. But the rapid transitions many countries made from colony to self-governance lead to the rise of military dictatorships and brutal civil wars.
Secondly, crediting that life expectancy rose dramatically after decolonisation to the gaining of independence by these countries, is a terribly false argument. There are dozens of reasons why life expectancy rose. Meanwhile, this completely disregards the scientific progress and agricultural revolutions. However, you name decolonisation as a reason for such worldwide progress?! Mind you, developed countries in Europe enjoyed even further rise of life expectancy.
Kind of disappointed in you, Crash Course. Sure, the views you're representing are popular, but your job is to tell the truth, not what people want to hear. Colonising nations did some terrible terrible things, but give them credit where it is due.
Great comment.
Hay crash course which software did you use to edit the video
2:51 bhabi means sister-in-law
Big up Trinidad! 🇹🇹I've lived in the UK most of my life and have never heard that there was a Trini connection to the Beatles!
I assume bc a lot of the west indians lived in liverpool.
10:22 i understand the need for political correctness, but this argument is utter garbage. over the course of 30 years they gained...10 years of life expectancy ? is it low ? is it high ? how do you know ? you need something to compare ! how much lifespan did Europeans gain in the meantime ?
i'll let people think whatever they want about colonization, but if you want to answer whether they were better off as colonies you need two similar colonized areas, and check one that "stayed" a colony and one that took independence.
you think there's no such thing ? wrong !
compare french Guyana with Suriname : one took its independence and is pretty much a shithole which GDP depends on drugs and gold mining, the other has decent schools, roads, security, and a spaceport.
Also the Comoros are a good example, out of the four islands, three became independent while the last one (mayotte) outright refused. nowadays the Comoros are one of the poorest country in the world while Mayotte has almost the same level of comfort as mainland France, and we have to fend off and endless flow of comorians who try to sneak into mayotte to give birth there so that their kid get the right to claim french nationality. oh, fun fact : after 24 years of -nonsense- independence two of the islands actually tryed to re-join, but we gave them the middle finger.
All colonizers are not equal, France had a very different policy towards its colonies than Britain for what it's worth, but those two examples show that sometimes, yes, staying with the colonizer can actually be better, clearly.
Historically Britain treated its colonies better, though slightly, than France. And anyway your argument for colonies sometimes being better doesn't remove the fact that it should not have happened, its a useless debate to say some do better now.
@@selfeven7150 don't get me wrong, but saying "it shouldn't have happened" is kind of missing the point.
Is it "good" to be colonised ? Probably not, is it good for yourself to colonize others ? Economically clearly yes.
Should it happen ? I don't know, but when one party becomes far more powerful than it's neighbors, it's bound to steamroll them. Not doing so would be naive and ultimately reward them for not doing what you did (ie: invest in military).
So while it is morally bad from nowadays standards, it is in the end *normal* that European having mastered sailing and gunpowder overpowered a world filled with people equipped with pointy sticks
Edit : oh and btw, I have doubts about your claims of the Brits treating their colonies better. Maybe they treated their british colonists better but certainly not the natives. France had notoriously better relationships with American natives at least. But whatever.
All caught up! Really enjoying the series so far. And i genuinely love history and didn't just come here because of quarantine! lol.
You really got the Kenyan part wrong in terms of the basic lay of events. I get it's a 5 minute thing, but Kenyan independence was an odd thing because of the disconnect between various movements. It also began far before the period you seem to be referring to. The summary probably deserves a bit more nuance like you gave to Algeria just due to the educational focus of these videos.
You're also probably overstating the immediate post-ww2 migration from the colonies to the colonizing countries. The biggest wave for Britain, for example, came immediately after rebuilding.
All things are more complicated especially if you have deeper knowledge of them. This was a simple overview that got nothing wrong but couldn't dive deeper. It would be better to send people to sources that give a deeper discussion on the matter.
I hope that you will mention the violence, terrorrism and state-sponsored opression in Europe in Cold War period in some episode.
Also since China as of late has grown neo imperialistic when involved with Africa
While China is far from innocent, comparing it to European neo colonialism is still a stretch.
When it comes to African nations, Until China begins, blocking access to education, Healthcare, nutrition etc., that results in a decline or at least, a slow down of the nation's development & a decrease in life expectancy, not related to a pathogen, your idea of Chinese imperialism in Africa is illogical & without proof.
Economists have seen nothing but increases in life expectancy, more wide spread access to education & Healthcare. Plus, over 40% of Sub Saharan Africa's impoverished have been lifted into the middle class over the last 20 years.
All of this includes deals with China & surprisingly Russia. It's like John stated, it's a battle of which ideology benefits the most. Communism vs Capitalism. And it looks like a hybrid is forming in Africa.
Jo You Know well China buys off particularly industries to “help” with a African country’s projects and debts like transportation and energy and instead of using the country’s workers China uses their own so the country can’t benefit from the investment (except the ones in power) and as a result China technically owns that because the country owes them from paying off that depth. This doesn’t just include Africa but also several Balkan-centric countries and Sri Lanka
France still has a similar neo Imperialist system with their former colonies
I’m just pointing out that China can lead down that road based on their policies and similar practices by other countries.
I’m also worried for the people within those countries because the most benefiting from it are either officials or China.
And also their might be a form of slavery being set up from Saudi Arabia.
I’m just cautious with what might happen when more authoritative groups take advantage on countries that have been dealt with a heavy hand.
@@qliphalpuzzle5453 while I can understand the approach with caution ⚠️ aspect of making deals with China. But that logic literally applies to every nation.
Why get extra paranoid now because it's China. It's not irrational for China to find the best deal for itself. Just like it's not irrational for African nations to do the same.
The problem here, is that SS African nations have been under strongman leadership for so long, people just assume Africa is going to make bad decisions for its people forever, despite showing two and a half decades of positive growth that is only being slowed by the EU & US blocking access to nuclear power 🔋. So the African union has to court China & Russia for this resource to super charge their economies, education & health infrastructures.
China & Russia are far from ideal business & political partners, but African leadership is growing with the only options available.
China courting Africa is scaring the hell out of the Western powers. It means a decrease in economic power for them.
So there's a lot of misinformation about China Africa deals to stir unsupported paranoia of new colonialism.
There's obvious racism, but China hiring their own doesn't support the numbers that show their are 40% less impoverished people in Africa.
If China was practicing neo colonialism, there would be more SS Africans in poverty... not less.
@@qliphalpuzzle5453 furthermore, many people can't understand why is making these deals with African nations.
They are not buying land for resources... They are buying United Nation votes in their favor. And China is buying its influence on the World Health Organization. They are trying to get TCM aka Traditional Chinese Medicine as seen as legitimate Healthcare, when most of it is largely pseudoscience that people believe that actually work. Maybe 10% is proven legitimate, but the rest can be harmful to the science & health illiterate.
Hey john green. Good to see you’re doing good
Really disappointing that a series on European history is only used to vilify Europeans as the cause of all the worlds problems. Even the mongols didn't get such negative coverage from this channel.
@Hentai Eyes It wasn't as bad as the propaganda makes it seem. They spread freedom and values to the world. You think living under the Aztecs was peaceful?
You and your team are awesome teachers!
Last time I was this early Zimbabwe was still Rhodesia
This was great! Thanks CC!