The Importance of Historical Justice

No one questioned the idea that big countries should swallow up or make territorial inroads into or take tribute from other countries. That's just what everybody did all over the world, whether it was the Aztecs or the Malians or the Chinese or the Mughals. It was the enlightenment that says this is wrong, this shouldn't happen. They gave the 19th century a bad conscience because they could see perfectly well colonialism was violating human rights. But if you look at their actual work and don't cherry pick a couple of quotes, you'll see this is an anti-racist movement.