I. Unit Framing: The End of Empires

Between 1945 and 1975, almost every European colony in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean became an independent state. The British, French, Dutch, Belgian, and Portuguese empires all dissolved. More than fifty new nations joined the United Nations. This was the most rapid reorganization of the global political map in modern history. Maria should understand both the forces that produced decolonization and the difficult questions that followed: what kind of states would replace the colonies, what kind of national identities would form, and what kind of relationships would emerge between former colonizers and former colonies.

Decolonization did not arrive suddenly in 1945. Anti-colonial movements had existed throughout the imperial era. The Indian National Congress was founded in 1885. African pan-nationalism emerged in the early twentieth century. But several factors converged after WWII to make decolonization unstoppable. European powers were economically exhausted and morally compromised. Colonial subjects had served in WWII and returned home expecting recognition. The new superpowers (the U.S. and USSR) had ideological reasons to oppose European imperialism. The United Nations enshrined self-determination as a principle. The cumulative effect was that the imperial order, which had seemed permanent in 1900, became indefensible by 1950.

Strategic insight: The story of decolonization has three movements. First, the rise of organized anti-colonial movements before WWII, often led by Western-educated elites whose education in colonial schools paradoxically gave them the intellectual tools to demand independence. Second, the achievement of formal political independence between 1945 and 1975, sometimes through negotiation and sometimes through war. Third, the difficult work of nation-building after independence, complicated by colonial-era borders, ethnic and religious divisions, economic dependencies, and Cold War interference.

Essential question: How did colonized peoples win independence from European empires, and what challenges did new nations face in defining themselves after independence?