The world might have been a better place if the American Revolution had never happened, according to Andrew Roberts, author of The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III.
In a review of the book in the February 7, 2022, edition of National Review, Roberts is quoted: “a world in which the American Revolution never took place could have been one in which a united British-American global empire would have been far too powerful for Kaiser Wilhelm II to threaten war in 1914, so no Bolshevik Revolution, no Adolf Hitler, no Cold War.” He also suggested, “British and Canadian liberals joining with Northern abolitionists might have voted to abolish slavery in the 1830s or 1840s, sparing the United States its Civil War.”
As a believer in the Multiverse, I suspect Roberts’ alternative timeline exists somewhere.
I've met many a Brit who has complained to me about how ungrateful the American colonists were to have made such a stink over taxes being used to fund Britain's ongoing war against the French. The claim was that without England fighting the French, North America would have been just another French colony from the Atlantic to eventually the Rockies, and then the West still remaining part of Spain.
A Brit makes the argument that... "well, Canada isn't such a bad place is it, and they didn't need to fight a revolution for independence did they?" I will counter with, "yeah, because England learned with America that if they didn't change their governance, then Canada could very well at some point just up and break off, and the US would support them....with the help of the French too.
But still I will ask these pretentious Brits, well, look how you all have treated Ireland, a nation of people too close to England and not powerful enough to have overcome British dominance? You have always treated Ireland and the Irish like shit, and still do (refuse to return Northern Ireland to the Irish), so we are glad we threw off the shackles of British imperial bullshit when we had the best opportunity to do so.
Too me the notion that any European monarchy/empire would ever be capable of relinquishing power without the threat of war is laughable. The British Empire was never brought to their knees until WW2 forced them to their knees. And one of FDRs best moves to was to allow Britain to languish just long enough so that there was enough transfer of wealth and power from Britain to America so that after Germany was defeated the world would no longer be under the British boot ever again.
Stupidly after WW2 we Americans believed that we should become the world police force, and in our own way awkwardly filled the void created by a declining British empire with our own form of uninspired attempts at controlling other nations... often for the same raw materials and oil the British had been controlling. None of that went well for us in the end, and now America is hated in many parts of the world more that Britain is. Funny how that worked out. I meet Irish folks who hate America more than they hate England today.
Nobody should ever underestimate the diabolical passive/aggressive nature of the British Imperialist mindset. They were NEVER altruistic at all. The British Empire was the new Roman empire, but the Brits always claimed to gloss it over with a "proper civilized nature" which was bullshit. At least when the Romans were being brutal dominators, they didn't claim to be doing it "for the good of the conquered". Rome did everything for the good of Rome/Romans, same way the British Imperialists always did anyway.