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Towards a History of Decolonization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2010

H.L. Wesseling
H.L. Wesseling
Affiliation:
(Leiden University)
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Extract

Decolonization has finished. It definitely belongs to the past, but somehow it has refused to become history. A great deal has already been written on this subject, and yet it seems that there is little to say about it. After the Second World War, the colonized countries wanted to become independent, struggled with their oppressors and threw off the yoke of colonial rule. Within a few years they all achieved their aim. That is the song that has now already been sung for about thirty years, in various keys, it is true, but with a remarkable consistency of tune and melody. The entire colonial history seems to have been no more than a prologue to an inevitable and triumphant independence. A new Whig interpretation of history has come into being.

Type
Modern Imperialism and Decolonisation
Information
Itinerario , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , July 1987 , pp. 95 - 106
Copyright
Copyright © Research Institute for History, Leiden University 1987

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References

Notes

1 The word ‘decolonization’ seems to have been coined in 1932 by a German scholar, Moritz Julius Bonn. See: Chamberlain, M.E., Decolonization. The Fall of the European Empires (Oxford 1985) 1Google Scholar. About the word, see also: Michel, M., ‘Y a-t-il cu impréparation de la France à la décolonisation?’ in: Enjeux et puissances. Melanges en l'honneur de J.-B. Duroselle (Paris 1986) 184.Google Scholar

2 Cf. Low, D.A., Lion Rampant. Essays in the Study of British Imperialism (2nd ed.; London 1974) 149Google Scholar; Kennedy, P., Strategy and Diplomacy, 1870–1945 (London 1983) 202.Google Scholar

3 Morris-Jones, W.H. and Fischer, G. eds., Decolonization and after. The British and French Experience (London 1980)Google Scholar; Gifford, P. and Louis, Wm. R. eds., The Transfer of Power in Africa. Decolonization, 1940–1960 (New Haven/London 1982)Google Scholar; Les Chemins de la decolonisation de l'empire colonial francais (Paris 1986); Blussé, L. et al. , India and Indonesia from the 1920s to the 1950s. The Origins of Planning (Leiden 1986Google Scholar; also published as Itinerario 10, 1 (1986)). Of course the pioneer studies by von Albertini, R., Dekolonisation (Cologne 1986Google Scholar; English translation, New York 1971) and H. Grimal, La Décolonisation (Paris 1965; new cd. 1985; English translation, London 1978) should also be mentioned.

4 Gallagher, J., The Decline, Revival and Fall of the British Empire (Cambridge 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Low, D.A., The Contraction of England (Inaugural lecture, Cambridge 1984)Google Scholar; Holland, R.F., European Decolonization, 1918–1981. An Introductory Survey (London 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Smith, T., The Pattern of Imperialism. The United States, Great Britain and the Late Industrializing World since 1815 (Cambridge 1981)Google Scholar; van Doom, J.A.A. and Hendrix, W.J., The Process of Decolonization, 1945–1975. The Military Experience in Comparative Perspective. Comparative Asian Studies Programme 17 (Rotterdam 1987)Google Scholar; Bank, J., ‘Exercities in vergelijkende dekolonisatie; Indonesië in Zuid-Oost Azië, Nederland in West-Europa’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde. 141, 1 (1985) 19–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Emmer, P.C., ‘De contractie van het Westen; de dekolonisatie na 1945’ in: Heldring, J.L., Renner, H. and Soetendorp, R.B. eds., Geschiedenis na 1945 (Utrecht/Antwerpen 1985)Google Scholar; Kuitenbrouwer, M., ‘Dekolonisatie en revolutie in vergelijkend perspectief: Indonesië, India en Indochina’ in: van Goor, J. ed., The Indonesian Revolution (Utrecht 1981).Google Scholar

5 See for example, The Transfer of Power in India. N. Mansergh ed. (12 vols.; London 1970–1983); Officiële bescheiden betreffendede Nederlands-Indonesische betrekkingen. 1945–1950. S. L. van der Wal ed., continued by P. J. Drooglever(13 vols.; The Hague 1971–1986).

6 See Brunschwig, H., ‘The Decolonization of French Black Africa’ in: Gifford, and Louis, eds., Transfer of Power, 211–224.Google Scholar

7 The impact or lack of impact of the events in Asia on the decolonization of Africa is now a matter of discussion, particularly among British historians; see for example, D.A. Low, ‘The Asian Mirror to Tropical Africa's Independence’ and Wm. R. Louis and R. Robinson, ‘The United States and the Liquidation of the British Empire in Tropical Africa, 1941–1951’. Both in Gifford and Louis eds., Transfer of Power, 1–30 and 31–56 resp.; also Gallagher, Decline, and Holland, European Decolonization, passim.

8 Cf. Girardet, R.. L'ldée coloniale en France. 1871–1962 (Paris 1972)Google Scholar; Marshall, D.B., The French Colonial Myth and Constitution-Making in the Fourth Republic (New Haven/London 1973)Google Scholar; Wesseling, H.L., ‘Post-imperial Holland’, Journal of Contemporary History 15, 1 (1980) 125–142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Brockway, F., The Colonial Revolution (New York 1973) 75Google Scholar. See also Darwin, J., ‘British Decolonization since 1945: A Pattern or a Puzzle’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 12, 2 (1984) 187–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Cf. Robinson, R., ‘Non-European Foundations of European Imperialism: Sketch for a Theory of Collaboration’ in: Owen, R. and Suteliffe, B. eds., Studies in the Theory of Imperialism (London 1972) 117–140Google Scholar; Robinson, R., ‘The Excentric Idea of Imperialism, with or without Empire’ in: Mommsen, W.J. and Osterhammel, J. eds., Imperialism and after. Continuities and Discontinuities (London 1986) 267–289.Google Scholar

11 Cf. Low, Contraction, 12 and, for the opposite view, Holland, European Decolonization, 191.

12 In Indonesia the Republic was able to quickly put down the 1948 communist uprising, the so-called ‘Madiun Affair’. On the importance of this see for example Van Doorn, Process, 10 and Kuitenbrouwer, Dekolonisatie’, 101.

13 Hopkins, A.G., ‘European Expansion into West Africa: A Historiographical Survey of English-language Publications since 1945’ in: Emmer, P.C. and Wesseling, H.L. eds., Reappraisals in Overseas History (Leiden 1979) 54–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cf. also Fieldhouse, D., ‘Decolonization, Development, and Dependence: A Survey of Changing Attitudes’ in: Gifford, and Louis, eds., Transfer of Power, 483–512.Google Scholar

14 Sec on this subject for example L. Blussé, Wesseling, H.L. and Winius, G.D. eds., History and Underdevelopment (Leiden/Paris 1980)Google Scholar. also published as Itinerario 4, 1 (1980).

15 Gallagher, J. and Robinson, R., ‘The Imperialism of Free Trade’, Economic History Review 2nd Ser. 6, 1 (1953) 1–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar. According to Winks the term ‘informal empire’ was used already in 1934 by Charles R. Fay; see Winks, R.W., ‘On Decolonization and Informal Empire’, American Historical Review 81 (1976) 544.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 Cf. Wesseling, ‘Post-Imperial Holland’. On the impact of the Dutch example (‘le complexe hollandaise’) on French decolonization, see Marseille, J., Empire colonial et capitalisme français. Histoire d'un divorce (Paris 1984) 359 ff.Google Scholar

17 Cf. Tomlinson, B.R., ‘Continuities and Discontinuities in Indo-British Economic Relations: British Multinational Corporations in India, 1920–1970’ in: Mommsen, and Osterhammel, eds., Imperialism and after, 154–166.Google Scholar