Agree, the colonial empires did unimaginable horrors, you're probably right on this, probably they should never be praised. ...my bad for ignoring the part of their history that happened outside Europe. Maybe the word "empire" is a bad one to use, too many bloody connotations for non-europeans.
But there is to be said that the industrial revolution and its consequences would likely not have happened without the colonial empires. And, as much as we want to consider our society the consequence of the French Revolution and the independence war and all those etc., I think our true culture we live in (not the one we imagine when we go to theatre or read some lofty philosophy) that brought us the current comforts, including the laptops we type from, is the (incredibly bloody) product of industrial revolution and industrial capitalism that was fuelled by imperialism. There's where we come from, and it just is, guild / shame etc. are practically useless with respect to a past longer than a lifetime, water under the bridge etc. We just need to be wise enough to not repeat the mistakes of the past. And honest enough to take ownership of the true foundations of our society. And to use the fruits of the spilled blood as much/best as we can and make them plentiful to all - the only thing to do about spilled blood is to make bloody sure it wasn't spilled for nothing!
And:
> reduced the power of the elites, and forced them to content -and deal with- their own population
...that's another issues. I'd rather have whatever elite crops up at the top of an empire fan out and dilute their exploatation as much as possible. Modern informational society will make it much harder for far off acts of bloody exploitation to go ignored and unnoticed anyway, with a globalist culture of social responsibility, call it a "global-PC-2.0" (hopefully less ridiculous than the 1.0 version of "political correctness") in lack of a better word.
These are the challenges I care about: (1) how to create a "globalism 2.0" that economically works (maybe the whole dystribute-everything and crypto things can be put to good use here) for the best and also produces "global culture" (the 90's brought some mildly successful examples of this), and (2) how to create some "global-PC-2.0" or "distributed global eco social responsibility" (this will need some true innovation, and it will need truly un-censorable and anonymous communication infrastructure too as a substrate to work on - think "global channels that could broadcast live and no nation state have the power to shut them down even if they discover it breaks their (local) laws").
No, Empires destroy regional governments, customs, and cultures, and bring upon them iron peace, of enforcing the will and customs of the winners. It's the peace of the graveyard.
And while the Roman empire is too far back, the crimes of the British, French, and other modern empires are too close for anyone to have the gal to call them "peace".
That's what jingoists and racist creeps called them in their time -- doing their "white man's burden" to bring civilization to those pesky Africans, Indians, and so on.
There have been lots of turf wars in History. None where more unjust, more unwarranted, bloodier, and more sick than the colonial wars and enslavement of over a billion people.
After the peoples in Europe fought to bring down the old empires and feudal kingdoms, and establish their own nation states, the ruling classes went for colonialism to expand their rule and build new empires, this time by exporting the exploitation globally (not that they gave up domestic exploitation completely, until the collapse of colonial empires after WWII reduced the power of the elites, and forced them to content -and deal with- their own population).
From the Belgians, who killed millions in the Congo, maimed kids, slaughtered whole villages, to the French, who killed thousands of protesters asking for their country's freedom as close as the 1960s, to the British, who gauged out prisoners eyes with spoons, and exhibited the last native survivors of their atrocities as museum pieces...
Hitler, even numerically, had nothing on those people. He just did those things to Europeans. Had he done them to Africans, Native Americans, Asians, Indians, etc, there would be people still applauding his empire and "peace" today.
And unlike the wars of the long past history, the people who ordered and performed the colonial "imperial" atrocities didn't have any excuse of not being well educated and well bread "gentlemen" of means...
The appraisals of empires is because history is written by those who killed, not the killed. And the people doing the appraisals are the descendants of the murderers.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/22/britis...
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/apr/18/britain-destroyed...
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/worst-atroci...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocities_in_the_Congo_Free_S...
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/belgiums-genoc...
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/inglorious-empire-w...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/08/india-britain-...
https://www.history.com/news/native-americans-genocide-unite...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_indigenous_peoples
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/mar/04/the-k...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truganini
Some "peace"...