In 1945, Britain emerged as one of the 'Big Three' victors of the Second World War. Most people, in Britain and elsewhere, seem to have assumed that the British Empire would endure for a very long time to come. Yet within twenty years British power and influence had been enormously reduced. This book studies the causes and course of the process.
This book examines the process largely from the official British point of view. How far was Britain compelled to abandon her Empire, and how far did she do so voluntarily? The thirty-year rule governing the release of British documents means that many new papers, which heretofore were not available to researchers, have been used in this work.