Conventional accounts of Britains retreat from
empire after the Second World War portray a bankrupt
imperial nation forced to surrender her most prized
territories. In Deconstructing Empire, author Robin
Newnham draws on archival research to argue that,
despite these circumstances, the withdrawals from
the Indian subcontinent and the Mandate of Palestine
were in fact conceived as means of establishing a
post imperial order in which Britain would continue
to exercise global influence. Newnham also argues
that the decisions to withdraw set in motion a
process by which different...