ABSTRACT
The map of these two continents has been transformed since 1945 by a rapid process of ‘decolonization’. Before the 1939-45 war there were only a dozen sovereign states in the Afro-Asian world; now there are more than 100. Few vestiges remain of the colonial empires that European countries created after the first Portuguese penetration of the Indian Ocean region in the 1490s. In some places their ending followed long and bloody conflicts; but this uniquely big and swift change in the world map was also distinguished by the fact that, in most cases, the transfer of power was made by negotiation and without war.
