Fourteen-twenty

Could an experienced radiologist miss a glaring abnormality in a scan? Even one as glaring as, say, a picture of a gorilla implanted into the image? Yes .

The current guilt associated with colonialism actually belies a strain of (unconscious) arrogance, which attaches undue significance to period that was 1) recent and 2) driven by Western Europeans. The primary agents of world history have tended to be Empires, not nation-states. There is much hand-wringing today over the complex legacy of the European Empires, and yet these were only successors to the vast and powerful Empires that had existed before them. Through a dispassionate lens it is clear that each had its achievements and its outrages. Does the legitimization of slavery by the Ashanti Empire diminish its sophisticated culture and infrastructure? Of the great thalassocracies, where are the Omani Sultanate and the Chola Empire ranked according to their influence on the geopolitics of today? A short-sighted and European focus on imperial history creates a certain blindness to current world events. Lands are annexed, unequal treaties are signed, populations are re-moved and re-edu...