Decolonization Since 1945

One of the most significant changes of the post-1945 world has been the decline and final dismemberment of European colonial empires in Africa Asia the Middle East the Pacific and the Caribbean. In 1939 roughly a third of the world's entire population lived under colonial rule. At the end of the 20th-century less than one per cent did so. In this study each major European overseas colony rather than being subject to chronological or thematic subdivision receives separate extensive and consecutive treatment.