Party Politics and Decolonization

This study explores the relationship between Conservative Party politics and British colonial policy in tropical Africa during the unbroken period of Conservative government from 1951 to 1964. It makes an important contribution to the debate on decolonization.

Making a clear distinction between the Conservative party and the machinery of government over which Conservative ministers presided, Dr Murphy examines how the party itself exercised a direct influence over the struggle for power between competing interest groups within the African colonies.

The slow collapse of the European colonial empires after 1945 provides one of the great turning points of twentieth century history. With the loss of India however, the British under Harold Macmillan attempted to enforce a 'second' colonial occupation - supporting the efforts of Sir Andrew Cohen of the Colonial

This book throws new light on the impact of informal ‘old boy’ networks on British decolonisation. Duncan Sandys was one of the leading Conservative politicians of the middle decades of twentieth-century Britain. He was also a key figure in the Harold Macmillan’s ‘Winds of Change’ policy of decolonisation, serving as

Few aspects of the history of modern empires are of such significance as their economics and politics. These factors are inextricably linked in many analyses, have generated extensive historiographical debate and are currently the subject of some of the freshest and liveliest scholarship. The articles and chapters which are brought