The British Empire in the 1950s

MARTIN LYNN is Professor of African History at Queens University of Belfast, UK. He is the author of Commerce and Economic Change in West Africa and is the editor of NIgeria 1943-60 in the British Documents on End of Empire Series. He has published articles on nineteenth and twentieth century West African history, on imperialism, on business history and on decolonization.

This collection of studies examines the history of the British empire during the 1950s. The papers in this volume analyze imperial policy and the place of the empire in British society during the 1950s and the degree to which these years represented a period of continuing retreat or of imperial re-assertion.This collection of studies examines the history of the British empire during the 1950s. This is a relatively neglected period in the historiography of British decolonization, coming as it does after the more well researched era of the late 1940s that saw the start of moves to decolonize the empire. The papers in this volume analyze imperial policy and the place of the empire in British society during the 1950s and the degree to which these years represented a period of continuing retreat or of imperial re-assertion.