I've heard it said that the sun never set on the British Empire because God didn't trust the British in the dark. The book "Queen Victoria's Little Wars", by Byron Farwell, makes very interesting reading. And the movie "Mr. Johnson", despite its unassuming title, is a great piece of work (set in British colonial West Africa).
I myself thoroughly despise what's been called "Cocacolonialism" (i.e., "globalization"). My lifetime has spanned an era when "Darkest Africa" still possessed romantic allure down to these times, when the artist's pallette of once-lovely colors has been smeared to an ugly mud. Just the other day, I watched a documentary about a half-Tlingit gentleman in Alaska who splits time fishing and smoking salmon, a la his indigenous ancesters, with flogging pseudo-native craft items manufactured for him in Indonesia. (I've lived too long.)