Some good points, but the parts about the British Empire are off. I'd strongly recommend "Heaven's Command: An Imperial Progress" by Jan Morris for a piece that looks at all the good
and bad that the British Empire did under Victoria.
To make a long story really short, the British did ridiculous amounts of good in their colonies.
For instance, eliminating the Thugee strangling cult:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuggee#The_practice
They also ended a lot of cannibalism, human sacrifices, completely ended the worldwide slave trade, eliminated piracy, brought rule of law, built infrastructure, brought science and the scientific method, eliminated cults, ended rituals of widows burning themselves on their husband's funeral pyre, eliminated kidnap/rape/murder cycles in many of their possessions, brought sanitation and education, and... just tons of good. Overwhelming amounts of good.
The Empire was lost largely out of a sense of guilt and an unwillingness to take the actions that would have preserved it - pretty much any individual uprising could have been crushed if they'd decided to (including the American Revolution - see Ron Chernow's "Washington - A Life" for just how easy it would been for the British to end the whole thing at Boston, New York, or Valley Forge at various times).
To make a long story really short, the British did ridiculous amounts of good in their colonies.
For instance, eliminating the Thugee strangling cult:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuggee#The_practice
They also ended a lot of cannibalism, human sacrifices, completely ended the worldwide slave trade, eliminated piracy, brought rule of law, built infrastructure, brought science and the scientific method, eliminated cults, ended rituals of widows burning themselves on their husband's funeral pyre, eliminated kidnap/rape/murder cycles in many of their possessions, brought sanitation and education, and... just tons of good. Overwhelming amounts of good.
The Empire was lost largely out of a sense of guilt and an unwillingness to take the actions that would have preserved it - pretty much any individual uprising could have been crushed if they'd decided to (including the American Revolution - see Ron Chernow's "Washington - A Life" for just how easy it would been for the British to end the whole thing at Boston, New York, or Valley Forge at various times).