The history of decolonization is usually written backward, as if the end-point (a world of juridically equivalent nation-states) was known from the start. But the routes out of colonial empire appear more varied. Some Africans sought equal rights within empire, others to federate among themselves; some sought independence. In London or Paris, officials realized they had to reform colonial empires, but not necessarily give them up. The idea of “development” became a way to assert that empires could be made both more productive and more legitimate. Frederick Cooper explores how these alternative possibilities narrowed between 1945 and approximately 1960.

This book is included in DOAB.