Quote:
Originally Posted by Evil Tim
Well, we don't get a lot of detail on it: nothing about individual battles or figures, really. It boiled down to that we were taxing the states without letting them have any say in parliament and that was shit of us so the states revoluted and the rest of history is this happening everywhere else except Australia and the Falkland Islands. 
One thing that sadly isn't hammered into European students is that our entire history consists of fighting increasingly bloody and pointless wars against each other for hundreds of years at a time, so calling other countries "warlike" is ridiculous unless we're trying to speak from our position as experts in the field. |
Wow, I'm a bit surprised by that. Even here, some teachers here will mention that while taxation without representation was clearly wrong, the expense of protecting the American frontier after the French and Indian/Seven Years War was driving the need for more tax revenue. Therefore, it wasn't that unreasonable to increase our taxes in order to pay for something that only Americans needed.
Just curious, what's the modern British take on the Opium Wars? Is there a way to put a positive spin on that?