ABSTRACT
The peak of Europe’s dominance over other parts of the world was reached in the decade before 1914 and immediately after the First World War. Thereafter the process of imperial expansion was gradually transformed into one of withdrawal. This change, at first imperceptible and then gradual, became, during the 1950s and 1960s, an unscrambling of colonies which was even more rapid than the original ‘scramble’ itself.
