• justOnePersistentKbinPlease@fedia.io
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    26 days ago

    The seven years war is fantastic and is utterly critical to understanding the US Revolution as well as understanding how the Iroquois pulled a power move on the other first nations that worked, but later led to the current situation with first nations in North America.

    On the revolution: Namely that corruption was so endemic in the colonies that when the UK actually started to do something about it the revolution happened albeit with a lot of pushing from the upper crust of the colonies.

    • wjrii@lemmy.world
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      26 days ago

      Fun couterfactual to consider: how many MPs would “the colonies” have needed to blunt popular support for the revolution?

      Probably can’t go very high, but maybe one per charter? If not that high (Scotland only had 45, I think), then what would have been enough “representation” to preclude the American elites from making a compelling case, or what paths to personal status would have tempted enough of them that there wouldn’t have been a critical mass of will and resources?

      The British colonized the Americas, particularly North America, very differently than Spain and France did, but didn’t seem to think of the purpose or integration of colonies as any different.

      • justOnePersistentKbinPlease@fedia.io
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        25 days ago

        The answer would probably be “none”.

        For example, the factors that led the average member of “sons of liberty” in New York after the initial elite only membership was worried about the elites owning massive tracks of land and driving up the cost of land for them.

    • Sergio@slrpnk.net
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      25 days ago

      TIL:

      It is now believed that the Ottoman military was able to maintain rough parity with its rivals until the 1760s, falling behind as a consequence of a long period of peace on its western front between 1740 and 1768, when the Ottomans missed out on the advances associated with the Seven Years’ War.[66]

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_decline_thesis