Dekolonisation: Das Ende der Imperien

by Jan C. Jansen, Jürgen Osterhammel

Kaum ein Vorgang veränderte die Welt im 20. Jahrhundert so sehr wie das Ende kolonialer Herrschaft in Asien und Afrika. In systematischen und chronologischen Kapiteln beschreibt das Buch diesen Prozess mit seinen weiten Ausläufern im gesamten Jahrhundert und bietet lokale, imperiale und globale Erklärungen an. Es fragt nach den Auswirkungen der Dekolonisation auf Weltwirtschaft, internationales System und Ideengeschichte sowie nach den vielfältigen langfristigen Folgen für die ehemaligen Kolonien und Metropolen.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, World History, Race, Social Justice

144 pages, Paperback

First published September 16, 2013

Reviews

[Gerhard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Academics love caveats ... the most important here is that decolonisation is not the same as decoloniality. You just need to read Quijano and Mignolo to suss out the nuances. Anyway, why are we quibbling about semantics when late-stage capitalism is fucking up the planet for generations to come?

[Jason Friedlander · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a dense but concise volume on the rocky process of decolonization around the world, with a particular focus on those that occurred from 1945 to 1975. It’s meant to be a broad overview of the trends that tied many national movements (and their aftermaths) together while importantly emphasizing the many factors that made each situation unique.

It’s an extremely ambitious book and has opened up a lot of new areas of interest for me, as well introducing me to many other relevant reading materials regarding this topic. Because of this I found the book to be absolutely essential to making sense of this momentous shift in the structure of human societies.

It’s truly difficult to overstate just how important this global transition has been in the grander scheme of world history. If you have any interest in this at all I’d highly recommend this book as a great start to getting into it all.

[Matsingersara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very important book that gives a good introduction to decolonisation; however, for me, the analysis could go deeper into the systemic issues. But overall, a good book to read to understand the period of decolonisation and its impact on society and world power today.

[Shayan Tadayon]

The book is structured into seven thematic chapters, which trace the global history of decolonization across political, economic, and cultural spheres. It highlights the most significant events and key discourses in a manner that is concise without being oversimplified or one-dimensional. The book's thematic approach and comprehensive bibliography make it an invaluable resource for anyone studying the post-war era, particularly topics related to anti-colonial movements and the post-colonial order, serving as an excellent guide for further, more in-depth research.

[Serge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. Glad I assigned it for World Humanities summer reading. Love the questons that he authors raise
1. Was decolonization essentially about obtaining national independence from alien rule, or at least to the same degree about economic or cultural self-determination?
2. Is decolonization tied to colonialism as a system of rule, or does it also apply to noncolonial contexts?
3. When did decolonization start, and when, if ever, did it end?
4. Can decolonization best be understood through a longue durée approach going back to the beginning of the twentieth century, or is it rather the baffling rapidity of imperial collapse in the decades after 1945 that claims our primary attention?
5. Was decolonization, in hindsight, a failure or a success?
6. Is a great deal of the current problems in the world to be blamed on a botched or incomplete decolonization?
7. What was the demographic share of the colonizing population, and what was its internal composition (administrators, soldiers, merchants, missionaries)?
8. How and to what degree was the colonia economy dependent on the world market?
9. What was the class and gender structure of the indigenous population, its ethnic and religious composition, and its geographic distribution?
10. What was the legal position of the colonized (segregated law codes and special jurisdiction, explicit religious or ethnic discrimination)?
11. To what extent did the colonial power intervene in local society through cultural and educational policy? Did it contribute to the emergence if well-trained and Western educated groups among the colonized population?
12. Which were the main movements of anticolonial resistance: their activists, supporters, and social substratum; their motives and goals? How did the colonial state respond to anti-colonial challenges?
13. Did other (e.g., ethnic religious) conflicts complicate the picture of a binary confrontation of liberation movements and the colonial state?
14. Which regulations regulating citizenship were implemented in the new nation-state?
15. What kind of treatment was meted out to expatriate ex-colonizers and their property?
16. How durable were the political institutions created at independence?
17. How did the colonial past impact the cultural situation after independence (retention of European languages or promotion of national languages, promotion of nationalistic versions of history, etc.)?

[Jonathan Fryer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Decolonization was one of the most significant historical and sociological processes of the second half on the 20th Century, yet has received surprisingly little specifically-focused academic attention. This volume by two German scholars (elegantly translated into English) therefore fills a yawning lacuna. Furthermore, it is written in such a flowing narrative style that it will be as appealing to the interested general reader as to the specialist.

[Patrick Link · Rating 3 out of 5]

A reviewer said this book was rigorous and accessible and on the whole I agree with that. It did seem to be a bit too down on the postcolonial states. They gave what they called neocolonialism short shrift. The absence of any mention of the New International Economic Order seemed strange when talking about economic opportunities and when talking about postcolonial academic studies.

[Bram · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good big picture discussion

There are good summaries of the major aspects of decolonization (economy, political ideologies). The focus is mainly on African and Asian former colonies. There isn’t much mention of Caribbean or Pacific colonies. Don’t expect detailed narratives of any former colonies route to independence.

[Magnus Halsnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ei interessant og ganske lesverdig og lettlest bok om avkolonisering, der forfattarane prøver forklare og forstå kva avkolonisering er og var og diskuterer dei mange problema som er knytt til eit svært komplisert konsept og fenomen.

[Kasia1312 . . · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ein guter Überblick über die Dekolonisation, vorallem in Asien und Afrika. Das Buch ist eher ein Starteinblick, Literaturempfehlungen sind dabei. Es ist sehr theoretisch, manchmal bisschen sehr trocken, aber zeigt jedoch, wie komplizierz und verschiedenen Dekolonisationsprozesse sind

[Marvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gute Verknüpfung von Theorie und Praxis und Aufzeigen der Gemeinsamkeiten aber auch vielfältigen Unterschiede im Dekolonisationsprozess. Teilweise nur etwas unnötig verwissenschaftlichte Sprache.

[Vorik · Rating 4 out of 5]

interessanter Kurzabriss über ein Welt veränderndes Ereignis des 20. Jahrhunderts

[sbs transit · Rating 4 out of 5]

#nsreads 29

Indeed a short and brief history but the list of suggested readings is decent

[Russell Chee · Rating 3 out of 5]

What's there to say? Decolonisation is certainly an important topic to grapple with, and where the book proves itself worthwhile is in going beyond a mere historical survey of decolonisation and related processes to consider political theory, ideas and even the fundamental considerations behind the term. We get models explaining the political developments of decolonisation - the transfer of power, national liberation, neocolonialism, unburdening and world politics model - and analytical perspectives - local, imperial and international - that altogether provide us with an incredibly wide view of various postcolonial happenings. One chapter is spent pinpointing the potential starting point of decolonisation, exploring fascinating qualifiers like the applicability of the decolonisation framework to the collapse of the Japanese Empire (certainly fits the bill) and the USSR (does not, because of the uniquely indigenised elite of these countries). Examining the importance of the interwar period, the chapter draws a direct link from the multifaceted impact of WW1 on what the authors term "late colonial" policy that, in turn, directly engineered the conditions necessary for decolonisation. The chapter that follows is the most explicitly narrative, though the authors attempt to view the process itself through an analytical lens of sovereignty and constitutionalism. Fascinatingly, we get a pair of brief chapters on the economy and world politics, and while these areas both merit entire texts, the authors do a good job of covering the bases. We get the sense that true economic decolonisation and decoupling is much more a spectrum than the irreversible process of political independence, while it emerges that the international political context surrounding decolonisation is in fact all-too-often overlooked or simplified - that though the impact of the former on the latter has been often expounded upon (for instance, in the devastation faced by Angola and Mozambique), the reverse process has gone under-noticed. An important point the authors make is the distinction between this particular wave of decolonisation and previous instances of independence from empires - where the latter merely represented the replacement of one hegemonic power by another, the former "[changed] the conceptual underpinnings of the world order"; it rendered colonisation, once taken for granted, "unthinkable or at least unspeakable", and it brought human rights to the genuine forefront of international discussion. What sets the book apart from other decolonisation histories, however, is its genuine attempt to discuss and engage with the competing ideas, ideologies and programmes swirling around the theoretical space of decolonisation. While admittedly short, it covers the naturalisation of decolonisation as a political inevitability, explores the triumph of the sovereign nation-state as the ideal post-independence model (though without overlooking the short-lived burst of federative enthusiasm), the emergence of colonialism as a historical condition, rather than a collection of events, in turn giving rise to considerations of power dynamics and structures, and the rise of the "Third World". There is also a brief section devoted to postcolonial theory, and while the length of the book may have been a limiting factor, this was one weakness - there was simply insufficient engagement with the debates within, and not just arising out of, postcolonial theory (to name but one example, the contention between 'postcolonial' and 'decolonial' as terms of description), simplifying postcolonial theory and caricaturing it as merely a pathetic attempt to contest the completeness of decolonisation, when it seeks far more nuance than that.

The other weakness of the book is perhaps unavoidable, though it is a failing nonetheless - it is simply too value-neutral; there is no judgment at all, no predictive paradigm, no evaluative conclusion nor any incisive, analytical synthesis. The conclusion, while an enticing and suitably enlightening meditation on legacies and memories of decolonisation in both colonies and metropoles, makes no attempt to synthesize the information and analysis the authors make to provide a perhaps more memorable snapshot of one of the most important processes of the 20th century.

[Mills College Library]

325.309 J351 2017

[Susan Collinsworth]

recommended in MOAA