Great Britain Dbq

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The greatness of Great Britain from 1750 to 1915 has been debated for generations, but it’s important to define greatness, the main themes are political, Imperial and Economic. I will explore the positives and negatives of the British empire, and will end with a rounded conclusion. I think Britain was a great during this period because they helped many people get used to the modern world.

One of the benefits of the British Empire, was that it made certain countries very rich. In Africa, the world’s poorest continent, the British Empire colonized 5 of the top 10 richest countries: Egypt, Sudan, South Africa, Ghana and Nigeria. In fact they even managed to colonize 7 of the top 10 richest countries in the world: Brunei, Qatar, Singapore, Kuwait, …show more content…

Britain had found a drug that the Chinese would buy, opium. Opium was legally grown in British India and then smuggled into China, but after a while, its use and sale became illegal due to the damaging effects on the Chinese people. This made Britain angry, and as they had control over the seas, the British easily shut down some of China’s key ports and forced the Chinese to negotiate. However, the British were not satisfied with the agreement, and sent a second, much larger, force to take over more coastal cities. This shows that Britain wasn’t that great during this period as they killed many Chinese People, and ruined many of their …show more content…

However, the British Empire tried to help out, but sent the wrong person, Charles Trevelyan, to oversee relief work. He was a proud Christian, and believed that God wanted to punish the ‘lazy’ Irish, and refused to hand out any food to the starving population. Instead, he set up a public works programme, that the Irish had to work at to get fed. But then Trevelyan rapidly increased the prices, so the Irish couldn’t afford to buy any food. Britain was not great during this period due to the fact they killed thousands of Irish people by letting Charles Trevelyan keep his

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