One of the most significant changes of the post-1945 world has been the decline and final dismemberment of European colonial empires in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, the Pacific, and the Caribbean. In 1939, roughly a third of the world's entire population lived under colonial rule. At the end of the 20th-century, less than one per cent did so. In this study, each major European overseas colony, rather than being subject to chronological or thematic subdivision, receives separate, extensive, and consecutive treatment.