Abstract
WHEN I was asked to speak on this subject, I was struck by the significance of the choice of words used in the title. I remembered how, only three or four years ago, Mr Dean Acheson had aroused a storm of patriotic indignation by his candid remark that Britain had lost her empire and had not yet found a role in the world to compensate for it. We had not lost our empire, came the indignant reply: we had transformed it into a free association of sovereign peoples, the Commonwealth. Even the Prime Minister, Mr Macmillan, thought fit to add his voice to these protestations, although Mr Acheson had spoken merely as a private citizen. It was as if men who had for many years cherished their belief in the Commonwealth suddenly found it necessary to shout down their own dawning awareness that the fine new clothes in which the British Empire had arrayed itself existed only in our own imagination, to conceal from our own eyes the reality of our nakedness.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Further Reading
Collections of Documents
The Development of Dominion Status, 1900–1936, ed. R. M. Dawson(Toronto, 1937), includes some illuminating newspaper comments as well as official documents, and has a masterly introduction.
Selected Speeches and Documents on British Colonial Policy, 1763–1917, ed. A. B. Keith (Oxford, 2 vols, 1918; 1 vol. reprint, 1948), with its sequel, Speeches and Documents on the British Dominions, 1918–1931. (Oxford, 1932), conveniently bring together most of the basic official documentary material; they have been supplemented by
Imperial Constitutional Documents, 1765–1965, ed. F. Madden(Oxford. 1966).
Documents and Speeches on British Commonwealth Affairs, 1931–52, 2 vols, and its sequel, 1952–62, both ed. N. Mansergh (1952 and 1963): a magnificent collection, including some material on the transition of the dependencies to independence, although mainly concerned with the relations between Britain and the older members of the Commonwealth.
The Evolution of India and Pakistan, 1858–1947, ed. C. H. Philips(Oxford, 1962).
Secondary Works
Hancock, Sir W. K.: Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs, 2 vols, vol. II in 2 parts (1937–42) is a work of great penetration, especially in its examination of the British response to Dominion nationalism. It is supplemented and continued by N. Mansergh, 2 vols (1953–8).
Wheare, K. C.: The Constitutional Structure of the Commonwealth. (Oxford, 1960) brought up to date the same author’s standard work on The Statute of Westminster and Dominion Status. (1st ed., 1938).
Miller, J. D. B.: The Commonwealth in the World. (1958) illustrates admirably the viewvoint of a decade ago.
Jennings, Sir I.: The Commonwealth in Asia. (Oxford, 1951). A brief survey by an eminent authority.
Tinker, H.: South Asia: a Short History. (1966) covers India, Burma and Ceylon; it is a work of reflection as well as scholarship, and is admirably written.
Tinker, H.: Experiment with Freedom: India and Pakistan, 1947. (1967) discusses the transfer of power with exceptional lucidity, and judiciously places it in the wider context of British imperial policy.
Menon, V. P.: The Transfer of Power in India. (1957). A substantial study which includes an account of constitutional developments from the beginning of the century, written with detachment and scrupulous fairness by a distinguished Indian who played a prominent part in the events of the time.
Moon, Sir P.: Divide and Quit. (1961). Brilliant and incisive; important for its account of events in and near the Punjab.
Monroe, E.: Britain.’s Moment in the Middle East, 1914–56. (1963) brings out the essentials with great clarity.
Perham, Dame Margery: The Colonial Reckoning. (1961). A series of Reith Lectures, by the greatest living authority on British rule in Africa.
Oliver, R. and Atmore, A.: Africa Since 1800. (Cambridge, 1967) contains, in the African rather than the imperial context, a good clear account of the ending of colonial rule, and includes a substantial bibliography. A fuller account, now in preparation, will be given in Austin, D.: Africa, the Transfer of Power, to be published in Macmillan’s series on ‘The Making of the Twentieth Century’.
Hunter, G.: The New Societies of Tropical Africa. (1962) is a sympathetic but clear-sighted examination of a number of African states as they emerged from British and French rule.
Editor information
Copyright information
© 1968 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hanna, A.J. (1968). The British Retreat from Empire. In: Bromley, J.S., Kossmann, E.H. (eds) Britain and the Netherlands in Europe and Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-00046-3_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-00046-3_11
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-00048-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-00046-3
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)