Voices of Decolonization ─ A Brief History With Documents

This unprecedented volume shows how and why mid-twentieth-century decolonization transformed societies and cultures and continues to shape today’s world. The introduction explores decolonization as both a historical era and an aspirational movement. A rich collection of primary sources combines the voices of the colonized and the colonizers in Africa, Asia, and throughout the world to recapture the intensity and variety of the independence struggles. Organized chronologically and topically, the documents reveal how and why formal decolonization, once an unimaginable prospect to imperialists, came quickly to seem inevitable. Maps, document headnotes, a chronology, questions to consider, and a bibliography enrich students’ understanding of decolonization and its enduring consequences.

Todd Shepard (Ph.D., Rutgers University) is associate professor of history at the Johns Hopkins University, where he specializes in modern France, French Empire, and decolonization. The author of The Invention of Decolonization: The Algerian War and the Remaking of France, he has also published articles in the American Historical Review, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Journal of Modern History, and Journal of Global History, as well as contributed chapters to Algeria 1800-2000: Identity, Memory, Nostalgia (Patricia M. E. Lorcin, ed.) and Getting Out: Historical Perspectives on Leaving Iraq (Michael Walzer, ed.).