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Viewing report
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Deconstructing Empire. Edition No. 1
VDM Publishing House, June 2009, Pages: 104
Conventional accounts of Britain's retreat from
empire after the Second World War portray a bankrupt
imperial nation forced to surrender her most prized
territories. In Deconstructing Empire, author Robin
Newnham draws on archival research to argue that,
despite these circumstances, the withdrawals from
the Indian subcontinent and the Mandate of Palestine
were in fact conceived as means of establishing a
post imperial order in which Britain would continue
to exercise global influence. Newnham also argues
that the decisions to withdraw set in motion a
process by which different ethnic and religious
groups sought to emphasise their claims for just
treatment and their right to form independent
states. Britain's attempts to adjudicate between
these competing claims led ultimately to two
partitions - one in Palestine immediately overriden
by the outbreak of war, the other in the Indian
subcontinent creating a dividing line that still
stands today. Deconstructing Empire will be of
interest to anyone who wants to understand more
about the origins of some of the most intractable
conflicts in modern international relations.
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