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Dietmar Rothermund (2006) The Routledge Companion to Decolonization (Routledge Companions to History) Abingdon, Routledge, xii + 365 pp, £60.00 stg, hbk., £17.99 pbk., ISBN-13: 978-0-415-35632-9.
Decolonization is crystallizing as a distinct period of world history, though as this guide suggests, there are still many loose ends and unresolved consequences. The book focuses on the rapid collapse of European empires between 1945 and the mid-1960s, but extends the deadline to include the protracted negotiations in the Pacific Islands, the negotiations with China over Hong Kong and Macao, and Timor's liberation from Indonesian rule. It is broad enough, but nevertheless excludes British settler societies like Australia, Canada, New Zealand, as well as South Africa. The earlier decolonization of Latin America gets a look-in through the discussion of dependency theory in post-colonial economic policy (pp. 270-271). The book does not try to fit the breakup of the Soviet Union, and its casting loose of dependents such as Vietnam and Cuba, into its framework.
The series editors' target is the student or general reader, and format here includes a Chronology (1914-2002) and two background essays on the phases of imperialism and the historiography of decolonization. The latter distinguishes between studies that focus on the motives of the colonizing powers; those that take a more 'excentric' view, emphasizing agency of local elites; and a third more postcolonial tradition, distrustful of both of these grand narratives, and more interested in the experiences of ordinary men and women. There are then 4 maps. The one...