ABSTRACT
Most colonies in Africa, Asia and the Pacific which achieved independence after 1945 were annexed only in the last decades of the nineteenth century, and few looked like proto-nation states in 1939. Yet colonial nationalism did in fact surprise the imperial powers in the twentieth century. If, therefore, colonial nationalism was as old as colonial occupation, in the modern period it could be effective only by adopting totally new forms of expression. The essential feature of many tropical colonies was that full occupation and government were an unwelcome concomitant of strictly limited interests – strategic, diplomatic, commercial or moral. Moreover, decolonization was a cumulative process: the liberation of one territory stimulated demands in others and at the same time often made it pointless for the imperial powers to hold them. 1960 proved the most important year in the period of decolonization, for the greater part of the French empire then became independent.
