Building empires in perspective

Stuff happens - positive, negative and neutral. Some of it can become part of historical records – personal, local, national, and international. But such records are inevitably biased given that they are constructed by the idiosyncratically encultured mindbrains of particular historians.

I am presently reading T M Devine (2003) Scotland’s Empire 1600-1815 (474pp). He is a highly respected historian and I am fascinated by what he writes. Topics that have so far captured my attention include:

• In the 1600s there was a lot of traffic from Scotland into Europe and the Baltic.
• Emigration is a more complex topic than I have been led to believe.
• Scottish Presbyterianism has a lot to answer for
• In what I have read so far he has not said much about the native Americans.
• American settlers needed a wide range of skilIs and there were many openings for entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs are risk taking business people who speculate and innovate. They are the shakers and movers who make things happen They are the rulers rather than the ruled. They are the Leaders, Managers, and Administrators (LMA) who make jobs for the workers (employees, servants, indentured labour, slaves, wage slaves). The bosses and the workers need each other.

Businessmen and politicians have to generate policy and figure strategy, tactics, and operations to implement it. But there is rarely enough facts and evidence to make an inarguable case so people fall back on bluster and bullshit. This can be a source of stress and burn out in the elites and the masses. But this discomfort can be viewed as both positive and necessary.

America was a new world. The many categories of migrants had to face up to new ways of living and working. Norms had to be cracked and paradigms shifted. Anxiety, panic, stress and depression were to be expected in the face of massive cognitive dissonance.

The new world would have looked different to different categories of citizens – old/young, male/female, boss/worker, slave driver/slave, rich/poor, businessman/politician, cleric/atheist, class/ethnicity, extravert/introvert.

SO – stuff happens - who lived the historical life? and who could/should write the history stories. Bias is inevitable but it can be held in perspective.