McIntyre, W. David. British Decolonization: "When, why and how did the British Empire fall?"

Résumé du document

In this book David McIntyre, Professor of History at the University of Canterbury, gives a detailed account of a most important episode of British and global history, that is the fall of the British Empire. The decolonization process that took place mainly after the Second World War was sudden and relatively rapid compared with the four centuries of British colonial dominance. Yet Britain's withdrawal from its former colonies and the acquisition of independence by those colonies were achieved gradually and according to a specific national and international context. How does this book account for the fall of the world's greatest empire? What are McIntyre's arguments to explain the complex process of British decolonization and what is his point of view about that episode of British history?

Extraits

[...] It allows contemporary readers to better understand Britain's attitude towards its Empire. Taking into account the metropolitan dimension, McIntyre considers the various domestic pressures that could have led Britain to abandon its Empire. First of all, from a political point of view, McIntyre states that the Empire was not a major concern for political leaders. In his eyes, not only was decolonisation a secondary issue, but it also created very little inter-party debate: it seemed that the labour and the Conservative parties had found a consensus on the question of decolonisation (that it was inevitable) and that the parties' traditional feelings towards imperialism were inactive at that moment. [...]

[...] Again he underlines Britain's wish to proceed peacefully and in an orderly fashion. Britain insisted that power should be given to democratically elected regimes and that this transfer should not be the result of a violent revolution or military defeat. He again highlights the fact that Britain did not want to be involved in any military conflict, maybe because the issue was not important enough compared with the worries of the time. The real concern was that those sovereign states should stay within the Commonwealth, hence the necessity to conduct peaceful negotiations. [...]

[...] In the last part, McIntyre defines the feelings of the British towards the Commonwealth during the process of decolonisation. First, there was a feeling of disillusionment and detachment which accompanied the loss of British ancestral colonies and a kind of nostalgia as the Commonwealth would never be the same as in the past. More and more republics and micro- states were accepted in the Commonwealth, which became such a common fact that there was crisis of confidence in the Commonwealth”. Yet McIntyre notices a post-British role and therefore a rediscovery of the Commonwealth in Britain. [...]

[...] Consequently it provides us with all the information we need to understand what led to the fall of the Empire and how it occurred. It makes us realize that what we see as a crucial issue in British history was in fact considered of secondary importance by the successive British governments which had much more urgent problems to deal with. It also clearly shows the situation of Britain after the Second World War, which was so grave that the government did not even worry about the loss of their colonies. [...]

[...] McIntyre views British decolonisation policy of the time as ambiguous, painstaking and incoherent. Decolonisation continued even though Churchill endeavoured to enhance British influence in the world. This later proved to be a failure considering the Suez fiasco in 1956 which marked the end of British prestige in the Middle-East and in the whole world, and which proved that Britain was no longer a world power without the support of the United States. After that humiliation, McIntyre states that Macmillan's primary goal was to restore Britain's relations with the United States and to recover influence within the Commonwealth. [...]