This volume covers the first part of the 20th century processes of decolonisation within the British Empire, concluding with the independence of Ceylon, the first of the non-European-settled colonies. It also illustrates constitutional developments in the West Indies, (particularly Jamaica, Trinidad and British Guiana), Mauritius and Seychelles, Hong Kong, Fiji, the Western Pacific, Gibraltar, the Falklands, and West, East and Central-Southern Africa, as well as advance and retreat in Malta and Cyprus. There is a section on Egypt and on the mandates of Palestine, Transjordania and Mesopotamia. An introductory section demonstrates the changes both in attitudes to, and the dimensions of, colonial rule during the period from the deep freeze of trusteeship to partership. The concluding date saw, in addition to Ceylon's full membership in the Commonwealth, the speedy replacement of an abortive union of Malaya by a federation, a failed initiative in Cyprus, and what proved to be abortive reform in Hong Kong and Fiji, treaty revision in Egypt, a policy change in the Sudan, the surrender of the Palestine mandate, and the establishment of Israel.
By 1948, though doubts remained about a closer association of the colonies, protectorates and mandates in West, East and Central Africa, there was optimism about a possible federation of the Caribbean.
Author Biography:
FREDERICK MADDEN has retired as Professorial Fellow and Reader in Commonwealth Government at Nuffield College. Previously, he was Beit Lecturer in Colonial History. He is the author of several books, including the earlier volumes in this series, Oxford and the Idea of Commonwealth: Australia and Britian: Imperial Constitutional Documents, 1765-1965, A Supplement and British Colonial Developments.
JOHN DARWIN is Beit Lecturer in the History of the British Commonwealth and a Faculty Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford. He is the author of Britain, Egypt and the Middle East: Imperial Policy in the Aftermath of War (1981), Britain and Decolonization: The Retreat From Empire in the Post-War World (1988), and The End of the British Empire: The Historical Debate (1991).
