Decolonizations, Colonizations, and More Decolonizations: The End of Empire in Time and Space

In the 1950s and 1960s, colonial empires turned into what seemed to be a world of nation-states. But the first wave of decolonization came in the Americas between the 1780s and the 1820s. This article explores the relationship between these two waves and the wave of colonizations that occurred in be...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of world history Vol. 33; no. 3; pp. 491 - 526
Main Author Cooper, Frederick
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Honolulu University of Hawai'i Press 01.09.2022
University of Hawaii Press
Subjects
19th century
20th century
Activism
Assimilation
Citizenship
Colonialism
Decolonization
Empires
Equality
Evaluation
History
Nation states
Native North Americans
Political activism
Political power
Social justice
Sovereignty
United Kingdom
Brazil
Haiti
North America
Africa
Latin America
Spain
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Summary:In the 1950s and 1960s, colonial empires turned into what seemed to be a world of nation-states. But the first wave of decolonization came in the Americas between the 1780s and the 1820s. This article explores the relationship between these two waves and the wave of colonizations that occurred in between. Rather than assimilating the two episodes of decolonization to a single narrative, I argue that both entailed profound struggles in which national sovereignty was only one possible outcome and that in between empires were reinvigorated, transformed, and reinvented. The second wave of decolonization entailed what the first did not: undermining the very idea of empire. Both waves left unanswered a question that had concerned activists in their times: could political liberation be turned into economic and social justice? This article points to the uses and limits of the concept of decolonization in understanding struggles for global equality.
ISSN:1045-6007
1527-8050
1527-8050
DOI:10.1353/jwh.2022.0029