"Capitalism and extreme poverty: A global analysis of real wages, human height, and mortality since the long 16th century
[…]
• Data on real wages suggests that, historically, extreme poverty was uncommon and arose primarily during periods of severe social and economic dislocation, particularly under colonialism.
• The rise of capitalism from the long 16th century onward is associated with a decline in wages to below subsistence, a deterioration in human stature, and an upturn in premature mortality.
• In parts of South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, wages and/or height have still not recovered."

Sullivan, Hickel, 2022 : https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X22002169

@histodons

“For nearly a thousand years, communities on the Indian subcontinent had coexisted in a cultural melting where religious identity was less salient than ethnic or linguistic identity. “A hybrid Indo-Islamic civilization emerged,” according to the historian of India William Dalrymple. “In the nineteenth century, India was still a place where traditions, languages, and cultures cut across religious groupings, and where people did not define themselves primarily through their religious faith.” Much as communities had negotiated means of coexistence in pre-Mandate Palestine only to see them unravel during British rule, the subcontinent’s communal arrangements corroded when the full weight of Britain’s colonial state bore down on them. The Raj’s divide and rule policies produced a chemical-like reaction, shattering long-standing traditions of coexistence and interacting with local personalities who had their own ambitions, passions, and allegiances. It was another liberal experiment in empire gone horribly wrong, and on a scale so epic that once history’s chain of contingent events combusted, no one could contain it.”

Excerpt from Caroline Elkins' #book, "Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire"

@bookstodon hat-tip @markvonwahlde

Long read: British rule in Palestine during the 1920s and 1930s enabled Zionist colonisation at the expense of Palestinians.

A.Bustos, "How Britain supported Zionism and prevented Palestinian freedom": https://www.declassifieduk.org/how-britain-supported-zionism-and-prevented-palestinian-freedom/ @palestine @histodons

Long read: British rule in Palestine during the 1920s and 1930s enabled Zionist colonisation at the expense of Palestinians.

A.Bustos, "How Britain supported Zionism and prevented Palestinian freedom":
@palestine @histodons