The Ends of European Colonial Empires Cases and Comparisons

Authored by some of the leading experts of the field of decolonization studies, this volume provides a series of historical studies that analyse the diverse trajectories of the Portuguese, Belgian, French, British, and Dutch imperial demise, enabling comparative insights about the similarities and differences between the main events and processes involved. Addressing different geographies and taking into account diverse chronologies of decolonization, this volume explores the intersections between imperial and colonial endgames and histories of cold war, of development, of labour, of human rights and of international organizations, therefore elucidating their connection with wider, global historical processes. The volume concludes with an essay by John Darwin, 'Last Days of Empire'. 
 

Miguel Bandeira Jerónimo is a researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, Portugal. His research interests focus on comparative histories of imperialism and colonialism. He recently published A diplomacia do império and edited O império colonial em questão (2012), co-edited Portugal e o fim do colonialismo (2014) and published The 'Civilising Mission' of Portuguese Colonialism, 1870-1930 (2015).
 
António Costa Pinto is a Research Professor at the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Lisbon, Portugal. His research interests include authoritarianism, political elites, democratization and decolonization. He published recently (co-editor), Rethinking Fascism and Dictatorship in Europe (2014).

Introduction: The Ends of Empire: Chronologies, Historiographies, and Trajectories; Miguel Bandeira Jerónimo and António Costa Pinto
PART I: COMPETING DEVELOPMENTS: THE IDIOMS OF REFORM AND RESISTANCE
1. Development, Modernization, and the Social Sciences in the Era of Decolonization: The Examples of British and French Africa; Frederick Cooper
2. A Modernizing Empire? Politics, Culture and Economy in Portuguese Late Colonialism; Miguel Bandeira Jerónimo and António Costa Pinto
3. Commanders With or Without Machine-Guns: Robert Delavignette and the Future of the French-African 'Imperial Nation-State', 1956-58; Martin Shipway
PART II: COMPARING ENDGAMES: THE MODI OPERANDI OF DECOLONIZATION
4. Imperial Endings and Small States: Disorderly Decolonization for Netherlands, Belgium and Portugal; Crawford Young
5. British, French and Portuguese Decolonization Compared: Political Culture and Strategic Options in Multilateral Consultations; Bruno Cardoso Reis
6. Exporting Britishness: Decolonisation in Africa, the British State and its Clients; Sarah Stockwell
7. Acceptable Levels? The Use and Threat of Violence in the Decolonization of British Central Africa, 1953-1965; Philip Murphy
PART III: CONFRONTING INTERNATIONALS: THE (GEO)POLITICS OF DECOLONIZATION
8. Inside the Parliament of Man: Decolonization, Apartheid, and the Remaking of the United Nations, 1945-1970; Ryan Irwin
9. Cold War and Decolonisation in the Congo: Lumumba and the Neo-colonial Transfer of Power 1960; John Kent
10. The International Dimension of Portuguese Colonial Crisis, 1961-1968; Luís Nuno Rodrigues
Last Days of Empire; John Darwin