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What Extent Where The British Forced And The Middle East? Essay

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Gust: to what extent where the British forced to decolonize? The British Empire was the largest and most extensive the world has ever seen, encompassing a quarter of the world’s population on which “the sun never set” . Yet whilst it reached its peak after the First World War shortly after the end of the Second, a mere 27 years later, the process of nationalism and decolonization had started to occur throughout many of its colonies. Indeed, by 1964 most of its former territories had branched away from their former empire and gained independence. Yet can we cite this rapid and short collapse of the world’s largest empire as a reason for forced decolonization in favour of a more natural devolving of power? This essay will evaluate this point through analysing several case studies of former territories in the form of India, Kenya and the Middle East. It will also examine and consider a variety of factors, predominately during or after 1945, that may have contributed to the collapse both domestically and internationally to ascertain the cause of forced decolonization. To fully answer this question, we must first establish as to what ideology the British had adopted in terms of its imperialism during this period. Whilst it can certainly be argued that the seeds for decolonization had been sewn in the 1920s and 1930s they never came into fruition until after the Second World War. This in turn gave way to enlightened thinking amongst the colonies in the form of nationalism, which

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