Decolonization (The Making of the Contemporary World)

Raymond F. Betts considers the 'process' of decolonization and the outcomes which have left a legacy of problems, drawing on numerous examples including Ghana, India, Rwanda and Hong Kong. He examines:

• the effects of the two World Wars on the colonial empire
• the expectations and problems created by independence
• the major demographic shifts accompanying the end of the empire
• the cultural experiences, literary movements, and the search for ideology of the dying empire and the newly independent nations.

With an annotated bibliography and a chronology of political decolonization, Decolonization gives a concise, original and multi-disciplinary introduction to this controversial theme and analyzes what the future holds beyond the empire.

Raymond F. Betts is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Kentucky. He is author of France and Decolonization (1991) and Uncertain Dimensions: Western Overseas Empires in the Twentieth Century (1985).