Author: John Darwin Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell ISBN: 9780631164289 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 148
Book Description
Within twenty years of victory in the Second World War Britain had ceased to be a world power and her global empire has dissolved into fragments. With what now seems astonishing rapidity, and empire three centuries old, which had reached its greatest extent as late as 1921, was transformed into more than fifty sovereign states. Why did this great transformation come about? Had Britain simply become too weak in a world of superpowers? Had the pressure of colonial nationalism suddenly become overwhelming? Or had the British themselves decided that they no longer needed an empire, and that interests were better served by joining the rich man's club of Europe? In this short book, these and other theories are examined critically. The aim is not to present a detailed narrative of Britain's imperial retreat but to introduce the reader to the current state of debate in a rapidly expanding subject.
Author: Peter Clarke Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA ISBN: 1596917423 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 321
Book Description
A sweeping, brilliantly vivid history of the sudden end of the British empire and the moment when America became a world superpower. "I have not become the King's First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire." Winston Churchill's famous statement in November 1942, just as the tide of the Second World War was beginning to turn, pugnaciously affirmed his loyalty to the world-wide institution that he had served for most of his life. Britain fought and sacrificed on a worldwide scale to defeat Hitler and his allies-and won. Yet less than five years after Churchill's defiant speech, the British Empire effectively ended with Indian Independence in August 1947 and the end of the British Mandate in Palestine in May 1948. As the sun set on Britain's Empire, the age of America as world superpower dawned. How did this rapid change of fortune come about? Peter Clarke's book is the first to analyze the abrupt transition from Rule Britannia to Pax Americana. His swiftly paced narrative makes superb use of letters and diaries to provide vivid portraits of the figures around whom history pivoted: Churchill, Gandhi, Roosevelt, Stalin, Truman, and a host of lesser-known figures though whom Clarke brilliantly shows the human dimension of epochal events. The Last Thousand Days of the British Empire is a captivating work of popular history that shows how the events that followed the war reshaped the world as profoundly as the conflict itself.
Author: Piers Brendon Publisher: Vintage ISBN: 0307388417 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 850
Book Description
A WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD NOTABLE BOOK After the American Revolution, the British Empire appeared to be doomed. Yet it grew to become the greatest, most diverse empire the world had seen. Then, within a generation, the mighty structure collapsed, a rapid demise that left an array of dependencies and a contested legacy: at best a sporting spirit, a legal code and a near-universal language; at worst, failed states and internecine strife. The Decline and Fall of the British Empire covers a vast canvas, which Brendon fills with vivid particulars, from brief lives to telling anecdotes to comic episodes to symbolic moments.
Author: William W. Lace Publisher: ISBN: 9781560066835 Category : Commonwealth countries Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
Examines the events leading to expansion of the British Empire and the variety of reasons for its eventual decline in the twentieth century.
Author: P. J. Marshall Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 9780521002547 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 404
Book Description
Up to World War II and beyond, the British ruled over a vast empire. Modern western attitudes towards the imperial past tend either towards nostalgia for British power or revulsion at what seem to be the abuses of that power. The Cambridge Illustrated History of the British Empire adopts neither of these approaches. It aims to create historical understanding about the British empire on the assumption that such understanding is important for any informed appreciation of the modern world. Through striking illustration and a text written by leading experts, this book examines the experience of colonialism in North America, India, Africa, Australia, and the Caribbean, as well as the impact of the empire on Britain itself. Emphasis is placed on social and cultural history, including slavery, trade, religion, art, and the movement of ideas. How did the British rule their empire? Who benefited economically from the empire? And who lost?
Author: Stuart Ward Publisher: Manchester University Press ISBN: 1526119625 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 254
Book Description
This book is the first major attempt to examine the cultural manifestations of the demise of imperialism as a social and political ideology in post-war Britain. Far from being a matter of indifference or resigned acceptance as is often suggested, the fall of the British Empire came as a profound shock to the British national imagination, and resonated widely in British popular culture. The sheer range of subjects discussed, from the satire boom of the 1960s to the worlds of sport and the arts, demonstrates how profoundly decolonisation was absorbed into the popular consciousness. Offers an extremely novel and provocative interpretation of post-war British cultural history, and opens up a whole new field of enquiry in the history of decolonisation.
Author: Richard Gott Publisher: Verso Books ISBN: 1839764228 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 577
Book Description
A magisterial history of resistance to the rising of the British empire As the call for a new understanding of our national history grows louder, Britain’s Empire turns the received imperial story on its head. Richard Gott recounts the long-overlooked narrative of resisters, revolutionaries and revolters who stood up to the might of the Empire. In a story of almost continuous colonialist violence, Britain’s crimes unspool from the beginning of the eighteenth century to the Indian Mutiny, spanning the globe from Ireland to Australia. Capturing events from the perspective of the colonised, Gott unearths the all-but-forgotten stories excluded from mainstream histories.
Author: Brendan Simms Publisher: Basic Books ISBN: 0786727225 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 836
Book Description
In the eighteenth century, Britain became a world superpower through a series of sensational military strikes. Traditionally, the Royal Navy has been seen as Britain's key weapon, but in Three Victories and a Defeat Brendan Simms argues that Britain's true strength lay with the German aristocrats who ruled it at the time. The House of Hanover superbly managed a complex series of European alliances that enabled Britain to keep the continental balance of power in check while dramatically expanding her own empire. These alliances sustained the nation through the War of the Spanish Succession, the War of the Austrian Succession, and the Seven Years' War. But in 1776, Britain lost the American continent by alienating her European allies. An extraordinary reinterpretation of British and American history, Three Victories and a Defeat is a masterwork by a rising star of the historical profession.
Author: Sarah Stockwell
Author: John Darwin
Author: Peter Clarke
Author: Roger Payne Oam
Author: Piers Brendon
Author: William W. Lace
Author: P. J. Marshall
Author: Stuart Ward
Author: Richard Gott
Author: Brendan Simms