History and the Remains of Empire
Apr. 2nd, 2026 11:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtbcBritain has many nice fancy buildings and engineering marvels whose origins coincide with the the height of its colonial era. I surmise that the colonies were exploited such that their wealth turned into shiny domestic things. In visiting Paris and seeing the many old, grand buildings, and noting that France also had many colonies, I wonder if my theory holds analogously there too.
Glasgow's Victorian buildings seem to have developed a bit of a habit of collapsing and burning down. I can't help but suspect that, as we all end up as second-tier powers, it's nice to have the shiny things (if we don't think about why we have them) but there's going to be decreasingly many, no longer is there means to create them. They're valuable but perishable leftovers of a past era.
Glasgow's Victorian buildings seem to have developed a bit of a habit of collapsing and burning down. I can't help but suspect that, as we all end up as second-tier powers, it's nice to have the shiny things (if we don't think about why we have them) but there's going to be decreasingly many, no longer is there means to create them. They're valuable but perishable leftovers of a past era.
