@Saraband, you should join this part of the discussion given your studies 
Thanks for 'inviting' me into the discussion
@Jmacyk, otherwise I might have missed it
Your original post was fascinating for me,
@Nora - I had never heard of "Glanage" before. Also, you lead a much more interesting life than mine, and I thank you for your honesty in sharing an experience which may hold considerable stigma for many people: living on 'dumpster-diving'. I'm certain experiences such as these have given you a very unique perspective on modern society.
Raptori, as a member of a former great colonial empire I can confirm that though dependency was quite unintended in the beginning, it is shockingly the case today.
Hopelessly it's a bit both ways, with our former colonies often asking us for help, like in Mali, and you could see all those interviewed malians saying they wanted France to take the country back. 
It's not benefiting anyone when things get that bad.
Well, Portugal was the first colonial empire (alongside our Spanish neighbors, of course) and one of the greatest, for a few centuries. And our colonial rule was considerably non-violent towards the indigenous peoples of our colonies, at least until the 1960's, when independent movements in Africa got caught up in the Cold War and our Dictatorship tried to put a stop to them - which only resulted in a decade-long colonial war, with the inevitable independence of all our African colonies at the end. Today, unlike France or the UK, Portugal is actually a weak link on the chain, and is becoming increasingly dependent on our former colonies - particularly Angola, which has invested millions of euros in Portugal in recent years. Brazil has also been very important to us since its independence, a few years before the Napoleonic Wars in Europe. This is just to show that it can go both ways, of course, in terms of the relationship developed by the colonialists and the ex-colonies.
But let's not forget that Egypt was Rome's "grain storage" as we say (blast it I can't find an equivalent in English)
And Muslims conquered most of Northern Africa long before the crusades. It wasn't exactly a party. When the crusaders arrived, the princes there were so divided that they allowed the Franq to take a seat and start the "game of thrones" with them there, making alliances and breaking them...
Amin Maalouf wrote a brilliant book on the crusades, The crusades through Arab eyes
There are some pretty revealing passages. His conclusions also ring very true.
Well, reducing Egypt to Rome's granary was something often done in the 60's / 70's / 80's, but History has changed, has all social sciences do, and so have its many perspectives. Egypt is one of the world's most successful civilizations, having survived from +3000 b.C. to the successors of Alexander the Great, the Ptolemaic Dynasty. Arguably, it still survives in many ways, particularly in the Coptic branch of Christianity and its liturgy. While its identity was almost utterly diluted by the time Rome conquered it, it still lasted in many other forms besides a strap of fertile land.
I should also warn you about Amin Maalouf. He is a journalist, and a brilliant novelist -
Samarkand is one of my favourite books - but not a Historian. The Crusades were incredibly complex, and still generate a great deal of debate within the scientific community. The Middle-East was very unstable at the time of the First Crusade, with the Turks pouring in from the Steppes and threatening the established dynasties - but the
Firanj (Franks, or how Europeans were called in Arabic) were no less alien than these invaders. In many ways, Saladin was only successful because he rallied Egypt and other neighboring territories to his side, as part of the newly formed Mameluke power, against this common foe. Arabs & Turks even later united to fight the
Firanj.
(Sorry if I came across as pedantic in any way, is just that an awful lot is written about these subjects, many time without full knowledge of the facts, adding to the perpetuation of a stereotyped historical discourse. Particularly when Islam is involved.)
Can confirm Nora. From the perspective of a colonial force. Belgium owned the large african nation known as Congo. (In fact it was a private property of the king and he was forced to sell it to the Belgian state)
It was the start of what was known in Belgium as the siècle d'or (golden age fr.) with a unique and opulent architectural style. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is set during this time period.
Anyway, on one hand there was the idea that it was the right thing to do (the white man must educate the noble savage and bring civilization to them), on the other hand, they did it out of fear for everything that wasn't like them.
Unfortunately, Belgium also set the grounds for one of the most awful genocides in History - the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. Belgium practically invented the difference in ethnicity between the Tutsi and the Hutu. And it was a fairly small colonial empire when compared to others, so we can imagine in how many ways, and at what depth, has colonialism completely changed the nature of the relationship between countries, and even entire continents.
I always draw from History to write. I don't mind reading about the typical Medieval
ish-Feudal
ish setting in Fantasy, but it does tire me, and I enjoy reading about cultures inspired by other historical settings, particularly Islam. Does doesn't mean it's always great, of course. Peter V. Brett's depiction of a somewhat Islamic culture is offensive and verging on complete bigotry, and I say this as a gay atheist with no personal interest in the matter.
There are also great examples, such the series I am currently reading, Daniel Abraham's
The Long Price Quartet. It brings together elements of various Asian civilizations, particularly China, Korea and Japan, but there's also a Middle-Eastern flavor punctuating some of its world-building. The cotton trade is a fundamental part of the first novel, for example, and is explored in an interesting, fantastical way - it is important not to forget the importance of the cotton trade for the aforementioned colonialist empires, mainly the UK.
Terry Pratchett was (it is so strange to refer to him in the past...
) was a master at bringing philosophical, historical, religious, and many other things, to a Fantasy setting, clearly inspired by sources outside literature and fiction.
In my own writing, I am very interested in making sure the things I have learned from History - and still keep learning, and hope to keep (re)learning until I die - are present. Particularly how easy it is for revolutions to get romanticized in fiction, to the point of making them utterly unbelievable (
Hunger Games immediately springs to mind...). I do have a particular interest in Medieval Islamic & Middle-Eastern History, and so I often draw on these settings / sources for my writing. Having learned some Arabic and coming into contact with practically unexplored sources, such as the one I used for my master's thesis, I often become amazed at the lack of originality in some authors of fiction, since there are still so many new things to draw from in our own, collective past.
[That was a long post, sorry for the embuggerance
]
[Edited typos - many still survive, I'm certain]
