Reply #62: Your point about why empires of the past have dissolved probably has a lot of truth to it

[Time for change]

I haven't studied that issue in great detail, but what you say rings true to me.

But trying to untangle the reasons for things like that is a tremendously complicated task, complicated especially by the fact that major events generally have numerous causes. I feel pretty sure that anti-colonial sentiment in Europe contributed quite a lot to the dispossession of European colonies -- just as anti-slavery sentiment in our country contributed greatly to the eventual abolishment of slavery.