Decline fall british empire

Sunday 15 February 1942 was, according to Sir Winston Churchill, the blackest day in the history of the British Empire. Only ten weeks earlier Japanese assault troops had waded ashore on the North-East coast of Malaya. Now the besieged British, Australian and Asian forces in Britain's so-called "impregnable citadel" were compelled to lay down their arms and some 90,000 allied service-men became prisoners of war. It was a crushing humiliation and defeat that marked the disintegration of the British Empire. Even today the angry question is being asked: why? 1960 hardcover with dust jacket and some blacka and white pictures. Good reading condition only. Lots of browning and foxing. R50 postage in SA.

Heritage Press (New York) - Illustrated from the etchings by Gian Battista Piranesi. Very good condition. Pages mint. Cloth covered. This volume - Pages . Collectors item. Postage in SA: R60

AFRICA@WAR SERIES: VOLUME 7 MAU MAU: THE KENYAN EMERGENCY 195260 The Second World War forever altered the complexion of the British Empire. From Cyprus to Malaya, from Borneo to Suez, the dominoes began to fall within a decade of peace in Europe. Africa in the late 1940s and 1950s was energized by the grant of independence to India, and the emergence of a credible indigenous intellectual and political caste that was poised to inherit control from the waning European imperial powers.  The British on the whole managed to disengage from Africa with a minimum of ill feeling and violence, conceding power in the Gold Coast, Nigeria and Sierra Leone under an orderly constitutional process, and engaging only in the suppression of civil disturbances in Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia as the practicalities of a political handover were negotiated. In Kenya, however, matters were different.  A vociferous local settler lobby had accrued significant economic and political authority under a local legislature, coupled with the fact that much familial pressure could be brought to bear in Whitehall by British settlers of wealth and influence, most of whom were utterly irreconciled to the notion of any kind of political handover. Mau Mau was less than a liberation movement, but much more than a mere civil disturbance. Its historic importance is based primarily on the fact that the Mau Mau campaign was one of the first violent confrontations in sub-Saharan Africa to take place over the question of the self-determination of the masses. It also epitomized the quandary suffered by the white settler communities of Africa who had been promised utopia in an earlier century, only to be confronted in a post-war world by the completely unexpected reality of black political aspiration.  This book journeys through the birth of British East Africa as a settled territory of the Empire, and the inevitable politics of confrontation that emerged from the unequal distribution of resources and power. It covers the emergence and growth of Mau Mau, and the strategies applied by the British to confront and nullify what was in reality a tactically inexpert, but nonetheless powerfully symbolic black expression of political violence.  That Mau Mau set the tone for Kenyan independence somewhat blurred the clean line of victory and defeat. The revolt was suppressed and peace restored, but events in the colony were nevertheless swept along by the greater movement of Africa toward independences, resulting in the eventual establishment of majority rule in Kenya in 1964. Paperback, 72 pages

This item is sold brand new. It is ordered on demand from our supplier and is usually dispatched within 6 - 13 working days From the dawn of history to the decline of the Celtic Tiger - how Ireland has been shaped over the centuries. Ireland has been shaped by many things over the centuries: geography, war, the fight for liberty. A Brief History of Ireland is the perfect introduction to this exceptional place, its people and its culture. Ireland has been home to successive groups of settlers - Celts, Vikings, Normans, Anglo-Scots, Huguenots. It has imported huge ideas, none bigger than Christianity which it then re-exported to Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. In the Tudor era it became the first colony of the developing English Empire. Its fraught and sometimes brutal relationship with England has dominated its modern history. Killeen argues that religion was decisive in all this: Ireland remained substantially Catholic, setting it at odds with the larger island culturally, religiously and politically. But its own culture and identity have stayed strong, most obviously in literature with a magnificent tradition of writing from the Book of Kells to the modern masters: Joyce, Yeats, Beckett and Heaney. Features Summary Ireland has been shaped by many things over the centuries: geography, war, the fight for liberty. From the dawn of history to the decline of the Celtic Tiger - this title shows how Ireland has been shaped over the centuries... Author Richard Killeen Publisher Robinson Publishing Release date Pages 352 ISBN ISBN

Condition: Good. Name of previous owner on flyleaf. After seven years of marriage, the beautiful Lady Brenda Last has grown bored with life at Hetton Abbey, the Gothic mansion that is the pride and joy of her husband, Tony. She drifts into an affair with the shallow socialite John Beaver and forsakes Tony for the Belgravia set. In a novel that combines tragedy, comedy, and savage irony, Evelyn Waugh indelibly captures the irresponsible mood of the "crazy and sterile generation" between the wars. A vicious, witty novel. -- New York Times. Waugh's technique is relentless and razor-edged...By any standard it is super satire. -- Chicago Daily News. The most mature and the best written novel that Mr. Waugh has yet produced. -- New Statesman & Nation. A story both tragic and hilariously funny, that seems to move along without aid from its author...Unquestionably the best book Mr. Waugh has written. -- Saturday Review. About the author () Born in Hampstead and educated at Oxford University, Evelyn Waugh came from a literary family. His elder brother, Alec was a novelist, and his father, Arthur Waugh, was the influential head of a large publishing house. Even in his school days, Waugh showed sings of the profound belief in Catholicism and brilliant wit that were to mark his later years. Waugh began publishing his novels in the late 's. He joined the Royal Marines at the beginning of World War II and was one of the first to volunteer for commando service. In he survived a plane crash in Yugoslavia and, while hiding in a cave, corrected the proofs of one of his novels. Waugh's early novels, Decline and Fall (), Vile Bodies (), and A Handful of Dust (), established him as one of the funniest and most brilliant satirists the British had seen in years. He was particularly skillful at poking fun at the scramble for prominence among the upper classes and the struggle between the generations. He lived for a while in Hollywood, about which he wrote The Loved One (), a scathing attack on the United States's overly sentimental funeral practices. His greatest works, however, are Brideshead Revisited (), which has been made into a highly popular television miniseries, and the trilogy Sword of Honor (), composed of Men at Arms (), Officers and Gentlemen (), and The End of the Battle ().