Description
Book SynopsisThis is the first major attempt to view the break-up of Britain as a global phenomenon, incorporating peoples and cultures of all races and creeds that became embroiled in the liquidation of the British Empire in the decades after the Second World War. A team of leading historians are assembled here to view a familiar problem through an unfamiliar lens, ranging from India, to China, Southern Africa, Australia, New Zealand, the Falklands, Gibraltar and the United Kingdom itself. At a time when trace-elements of Greater Britain have resurfaced in British politics, animating the febrile polemics of Brexit, these essays offer a sober historical perspective. More than perhaps at any other time since the empire’s precipitate demise, it is imperative to gain a fresh purchase on the global challenges to British identities in the twentieth century.
Trade Review‘
The break-up of Greater Britain draws together a wide range of contributions from some of the leading scholars of empire and Britishness.’ Simon Potter,
Journal of Contemporary History -- .
Table of ContentsIntroduction: The anatomy of break-up – Stuart Ward
1 Maintaining racial boundaries: Greater Britain in the Second World War and beyond – Wendy Webster
2 Cut loose: the British in China and the aftermath of empire – Robert Bickers
3 Entangled citizens: the afterlives of empire in the Indian Citizenship Act, 1947–1955 – Kalathmika Natarajan
4 ‘How come England did not know me?’: the ‘rude awakenings’ of the Windrush era – Stuart Ward
5 Indians of Durban, South Africa and the break-up of Greater Britain – Hilary Sapire
6 The birth of 'white' republics and the demise of Greater Britain: the republican referendums in South Africa and Rhodesia – Christian D. Pedersen
7 ‘King’s men’, ‘Queen’s rebels’ and ‘last outposts’: Ulster and Rhodesia in an age of imperial retreat – Donal Lowry
8 The tale of two Commonwealths? The (British) Commonwealth of Nations, decolonisation and the break-up of Greater Britain – Andrew Dilley
9 Greater Britain and its decline: the view from Lambeth – Sarah Stockwell
10 From Pax Britannica to Pax Americana? The end of empire and the collapse of Australia’s Cold War policy – James Curran
11 Boundaries of belonging: differential fees for overseas students in Britain, c. 1967 – Jodi Burkett
12 Persistence and privilege: mass migration from Britain to the Commonwealth, 1945–2000 – Jean P. Smith
13 ‘The mouse that roared’: the Falklands and Gibraltar in Thatcher’s (Greater) Britain – Ezequiel Mercau
14 Falling Rhodes, building bridges, finding paths: decoloniality from Cape Town to Oxford, and back – Stephen Howe
Index
