In 1838 Lord Melbourne's Whig government in Britain sent the radical Lord Durham to Canada as Governor-General to deal with a colony in the aftermath of a rebellion. Durham's vanity and arrogance made him a poor choice for the post, and he resigned a few months later after the government had been forced to overrule him for exceeding his powers. After his return to Britain he wrote his Report on the Affairs of British North America - and its unauthorized publication in the Times caused a sensation. This report - the famous 'Durham Report' - has been seen as the starting point of the British...

Belize (formerly British Honduras) was a residue of the British Empire and the last colony in the Americas.

The Scramble for Southern Africa formed one of the most dramatic episodes in the more general European assault on Africa by the forces of the New Imperialism in the later nineteenth century. This book offers a fresh reappraisal of the complex sequence of events that surrounded the Partition of Africa south of the Zambesi in the years 1877 95. The Scramble for Southern Africa was, as Professor Schreuder powerfully argues, really a scramble for mastery of the land and its resources - both physical and human - and not merely a diplomatic strategy. The era of the Scramble made the white man...

The particular contribution of the Cambridge Conferences on Development was to gather together practical administrators and technical specialists in many fields so that they can examine together a particular problem in development strategy for the Third World. This 1971 volume selects some of the most important papers which were delivered during the 1960s, and presents them as a contribution to the discussion on how economic development could best be planned and advanced. Interspersed amongst the more technical papers are summaries and comments by Ronald Robinson summarising the consensus and...

'...it is well written, balanced and comprehensive. It splendidly incorporates the new work of the last twenty years as no one else has and it will be the starting point for everyone doing any work, from sixth forms upwards, on modern India.' D.A.Low

This book takes a new look at the Commonwealth from the founding of the Secretariat in 1965 to the 14th Commonwealth Games in 1990. The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 looks at origins, the Heads of Government Meetings, the Secretariat and the Commonwealth in a global setting. Part 2 covers race, Africa, inequalities and the security of small states. The final part, on Functioning, looks at regionalism, functional organisations, professional linkages, peoples, sport and the role of the Queen as Head of the Commonwealth. It concludes with an 'Agenda for the 1990s'.