POSTWAR: A Global History of the Second World War's Legacy

The Forgotten Veterans The role that colonial subjects in Africa played in World War II was critical. Preceding World War Two “Africans’ claims to citizenship were rejected” and would continue to struggle against the powers they themselves fought for for decades to come (Cooper 197). Cooper highlights the fact that Britain and France both recognized […]

The picture above is of three Moroccan soldiers in the French colonial forces. Thousands of men like them served and fought in the French military during the war and continued to do so even after France’s surrender to Germany. Once the war was over many colonies within the old European powers sought more autonomy and …

Continue reading “Colonies after the War”

One of the biggest atrocities of World War II was the semi colonization of Europe by Germany. Prior to this time period Europeans had always been the colonists. However, this shift from colonizers to colonized was, baffling enough, not enough to convince European powers that colonial rule was in fact cruel and oppressive. European powers […]

After World War II, European powers were not only left to deal with rebuilding their infrastructures and economies, they were also being challenged abroad by their colonies, places that they had held power for sometimes hundreds of years. With the end of the war came ideological changes across the globe, including changes of how colonies […]

“World War I is sometimes seen as a blow against empire, the advent of a world of self-determining nation-states.”   As the quote of above suggests, the end of World War II brought a self- consciousness and a sense of entitlement from the colonies held by imperial powers involved in the war. This awakening came …

Continue reading “Exploitation and Equality”

Since the Gunpowder Revolution, Europeans had surpassed the constraints of the feudal system. The ever rising cost of war and managing the state became the impetus for the Age of Exploration which saw the rapid global domination of European powers and the start of a hegemony which began to unravel at the climax of these …

Continue reading “Post-Empire Morality”

I found the articles both interesting and informative. The one that stuck out to me the most was Reconstructing Empire in British and French Africa by Frederick Cooper. The photo below shows African colonialism in 1945, right after World War II. Africa proved to be a challenge for the British and French government to have an imperialist influence …

Continue reading “Reconstruction of Africa”

World War I was known as the the war against empire.  However, this was far from the truth—many colonies were shuffled around, and the French and British relied heavily on their colonies in the second world war.  They not only … Continue reading →

Christopher Jackson Imperial Displacement The topic of imperial displacement basically speaks for its self. An imperial foreign power moves into an alien region and causes interference. This has happened a dozen times in dozens of nations due to over ambitions national superpowers. In the article written by Elizabeth Schmidt, this issue is covered by the …

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Most discussions of post-WWII are about its effects on Europe but we never really touch on what happened to Africa postwar. I know that battles were fought in Africa in Libya and Egypt but I had never thought about what the lingering effects were on the region. Not just Libya and Egypt were affected but […]