The Archbishop of Canterbury is the most recent public figure to decry American “imperialism” around the world. The London Times reports (“US is‘worst’ imperialist: archbishop”) on his interview on the topic. Interestingly he compares American foreign policy with British imperial policy and makes the claim that the United States is far “worse” than Britain was during its imperial heyday.

Leaving aside the politics or the political implications it seems really problematic to use a historical comparison to make a qualitative judgment. It’s one thing to argue that United States policies are or are not imperialist based upon similarities to historical precedents (like British policies that were at their time uncompromisingly imperialist), but it’s quite another to say that that makes one country “better” or “worse.”

Particularly strange (I think) is his comparison between current United States activities (Iraq, Afghanistan although he never mentions them specifically) and British rule in India.

Williams suggested American leadership had broken down: “We have only one global hegemonic power. It is not accumulating territory: it is trying to accumulate influence and control. That’s not working.”

He contrasted it unfavourably with how the British Empire governed India. “It is one thing to take over a territory and then pour energy and resources into administering it and normalising it. Rightly or wrongly, that’s what the British Empire did — in India, for example.

I’m not a specialist in the history of British India but it strikes me that there are several huge problems with his shorthand assessment of its history. For one thing I find it hard to believe that the net input of “energy and resources” the British put into India for its benefit over several centuries would be more than the wealth and resources that they extracted from it (not to mention “energy,” labor, and lives). I also cringe at the word “normalising” because it suggests that the British / European way of governing or of economic development is the only correct path for a nation. Related to this is the fact that the British imperial administration of India was hardly democratic at the time.

Finally, on the general point of American and British imperialisms, the Archbishop’s comparison fails to take into account the continuity between the British Empire and the American “empire” (if there is such a thing). In some senses the United States shares common culture and history with Britain. It might be that “imperial” activities of the United States are continuations of some British policies and the former global role of Britain rather than something radically new and different.

A slightly hyperbolic but nevertheless serious article in The London Times (“It’s your round: buy a pint and save a piece of Britain”) points out that the British pub is an institution under threat. I’ve read a bit about the pub in the formation of working class culture in Britain in the nineteenth century. Sometimes while studying the past it is easy to lose sight of the way that traditions continue to the present (or sometimes do not continue) which is one of the reasons this article caught my eye.

It opens with two amazing paragraphs that encompass so much that is unique about British culture and the way that Britons conceive of their nation and its past:

The lights are going out all over Britain. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime. Or possibly ever. To paraphrase the British foreign secretary on the eve of the first world war might seem over the top, but we are facing a threat to the British way of life that I consider vastly more important than the existence of Belgium.

The British pub is under threat. An institution adored and envied all over the world is disappearing before our very eyes and with it our national drink, beer, as the nation that invented jingoism succumbs to its terminal preference for anything foreign.

Statistics reveal that the pubs are under threat because beer sales have decreased dramatically:

According to figures released by the British Beer and Pubs Association (BBPA) last week, beer sales in pubs are down by 14m pints a day, or 49%, from 1979 levels. Nearly 60 pubs each month shut their doors for good.

At the end of the article Peter Millar reflects on the meaning of the institution in his life and gives one example of how the pub creates and nurtures local culture and community.

British beer and the British pub are joined at the hip, intermingled like no other alcoholic combination. British ale bought in a bottle is a fine but different product from cask ale drunk in a pub. Traditional real ale is a labour-intensive artisanal drink made with natural products and producing a rich range of flavours.

My local, the Pear Tree in Hook Norton, Oxfordshire, is blessed by being owned by the village’s brewery 150 yards away – which still delivers locally by horse-drawn dray – but we are well aware how lucky we are and terrified that we might be living on borrowed time.

Regulars include a jobbing gardener, a carpenter with a degree in earth sciences, the drayman who looks after the brewery horses, a nursery school teacher, a builder, a software writer, an optician, a lorry driver and one of the brainiest blokes I know who refills cigarette machines. Very few of us would know each other if it weren’t for the pub.

In an article (“Duke opens Field of Remembrance”) related to Remembrance Day activities in Britain the BBC quotes a veteran who makes the point of British war dead buried overseas in a very personal way. What also strikes me is that the burial of war dead overseas has clearly influenced the way that the British honor their war dead at home.

Mr Bowen, who joined the Army when he was just 15 and took part in D-Day with the 5th Battalion East Yorkshire, spoke of the importance of honouring his fallen comrades at the Abbey each year.

“I served for 25 years. My friends… some are buried in France, Belgium, Holland. I have friends buried in Egypt and friends buried in Palestine.

“How can I go and visit all their graves? It’s impossible. So what I do is come here and this is my way of paying my respect to my fallen comrades.”