Decolonisation

George Woodcock describes how the Imperial Conference of 1930, and accompanying events overseas, began the change of substantial empire into a shadowy Commonwealth.

Patrick Turnbull writes that the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, which opened on March 3rd, 1954, and continued until early May, marked the end not only of French, but of European hegemony in Asia.

The term ‘Chimurenga’ has various historical associations. It was originally used to describe the first rising against British rule of the 1890s; the Rhodesian Bush War of the 1970s is known as the Second Chimurenga. J.V. Woolford, writing as the Bush War was ongoing, puts the term in context.

Postwar decolonisation in West Africa saw tensions rise between the fading imperial powers of France and Britain, according to papers recently unearthed by Kathryn Hadley.

Carl Peter Watts estimates the importance of the different reasons for British withdrawal.

Goa fell to Indian troops on December 19th 1961.

Andrew Boxer demonstrates the ways in which external events affected the struggles of African Americans in the 1950s and 1960s.

José de San Martín and his forces liberated Peru and proclaimed its independence from Spain on 28 July 1821. 

What role did Simon Bolivar play in the history of Latin America's independence from Spain?

The intriguing death of an Indian holy man in 1985 suggested that he was none other than Subhas Chandra Bose, the revolutionary and nationalist who, it is officially claimed, died in an air crash in 1945. The truth, however, is harder to find, as Hugh Purcell discovers.