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Opposition to British Rule

Key issue(s)
Opposition movements, peaceful and violent

Note that the British Empire was never a static entity – phrase ‘decolonisation’ is more useful than considering just ‘the end’ of empire. Need to convey its rather complex and messy processes and how it was a mix of long, medium and short term factors.

Debates also focus on the intersection between metropolitan factors, the growth of anti-colonial nationalist movements in the places colonised and the relationship of both of these to international factors. The intersections of all three underpin the messy process of decolonisation in many places. It can also produce quite distinct histories of decolonisation in different locales – sometimes as a result of great violence but others more peaceful.

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五雷鎮宅 : 表2. CWP 60b (accession number (preliminary list of chinese woodblock prints in the soas library)), SOAS Library. © SOAS University of London.

Internet Resources
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​A useful secondary source outlining key intersections is John Darwin’s The End of the British Empire: The Historical Debate (Oxford, 1991).
 
If looking for British government primary source materials, the most extensive online source would be British Documents on the End of Empire (BDEEP).
 
The end of the British Empire (National Archives, Education) provides some useful sources, including film sources.

For this period, the range of visual material, including film material, also increases dramatically for obvious reasons and there are many YouTube sources that could add variety to class discussions.

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