Comment by tim333
2 hours ago
The Victorian era, 1837-1901 roughly overlapped the rail era - first railway 1804 in Cornwall, "railway mania" 1840s which was a railway stock bubble and crash.
>The mania reached its zenith in 1846, when 263 Acts of Parliament for setting up new railway companies were passed, with the proposed routes totalling 9,500 miles (15,300 km). About a third of the railways authorised were never built...
Somewhat reminiscent of our current AI boom. At least the Victorian one seemed to lead on to prosperity so fingers crossed.
Prosperity for who? Not for the colonies.
The greatest feat of the ruthless British empire was the great number of independency holidays around the world.
I'm not that up on the details but a lot of the former British empire like the US, Canada, Australia etc. are doing quite well. I was in Hong Kong in the 1980s and it did much better then under UK government than the mainland. Not sure about places like India. Ireland wasn't that great.