Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T13:52:00.614Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Ending Empire: Contested Sovereignty and Territorial Partition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2006

M. Anne Pitcher
Affiliation:
Colgate University

Extract

Ending Empire: Contested Sovereignty and Territorial Partition. By Hendrik Spruyt. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005. 305p. $55.00 cloth, $22.50 paper.

In his latest book, Hendrik Spruyt returns to a long-standing debate among scholars of twentieth-century decolonization: Why did some metropolitan governments withdraw from their empires fairly quickly, while other imperial powers waged a protracted struggle to retain their overseas possessions, sacrificing men and money in the process? Spruyt not only offers a sophisticated theoretical response to a question of historical significance but also applies it to more contemporary cases of dissolution by examining the breakup of the Soviet Union into 15 independent states and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Type
BOOK REVIEWS: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Copyright
© 2006 American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)