The dismantling of empires and what replaced them.
9 topics · 8 curated works
No prior grounding assumed.
Final Communiqué of the Asian-African Conference of Bandung
Asian-African Conference · 1955
Twenty-nine newly independent and colonised Asian and African states declare economic cooperation and opposition to colonialism their common ground,…
+2 more at this level
Assumes you know the vocabulary.
Imperialism: A Study
J. A. Hobson · 1902
Argues that formal empire was driven by financiers seeking outlets for surplus capital they could not profitably invest at home, an economic…
+2 more at this level
Primary sources and full treatments.
Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia
George McTurnan Kahin · 1952
Argues, from fieldwork conducted during the revolution itself, that Indonesian independence was won by a genuine mass nationalist movement rather…
+1 more at this level
8 works
Asian-African Conference
Twenty-nine newly independent and colonised Asian and African states declare economic cooperation and opposition to colonialism their common ground, laying the diplomatic basis for the later Non-Aligned Movement.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Kwame Nkrumah
Argues that African states winning independence one at a time would remain economically weak and vulnerable to renewed outside control, and that only political unification across the continent could secure real sovereignty.
Nelson Mandela
Mandela's statement from the dock at the Rivonia Trial, arguing the ANC turned to sabotage only after decades of non-violent protest had been met with escalating repression, and offering his own life as the price of that argument.
link checked 17 Sept 2026J. A. Hobson
Argues that formal empire was driven by financiers seeking outlets for surplus capital they could not profitably invest at home, an economic explanation of imperialism that directly shaped Lenin's later theory of it.
link failing as of 17 Sept 2026Mohandas K. Gandhi
Argues that Indian independence achieved by adopting British industrial and political methods would not be independence at all, and that the means chosen determine what the end turns out to be.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Alistair Horne
Argues that the Algerian War's use of torture and terrorism on both sides made it a template for the ugliest kind of decolonisation conflict, one that broke the French Fourth Republic itself in the process.
George McTurnan Kahin
Argues, from fieldwork conducted during the revolution itself, that Indonesian independence was won by a genuine mass nationalist movement rather than handed over by a retreating Dutch colonial administration.
Crawford Young
Argues that African states inherited the colonial state's authoritarian, extractive structure largely intact at independence, and that this inheritance, more than any post-colonial leader's choices, explains their recurring instability.