Books

The Evolution of the Modern Commonwealth
(with Peter Slinn)

The transformation of the British Empire into the modern Commonwealth is one of the most remarkable developments of the twentieth century. In 1902 Britain completed her last great war of imperial conquest, in South Africa; in 1919 ans 1919 new territories were added through the League of Nations mandate system. yet by 1947, with the dissolution of the Indian Empire, the process of decolonisation was already well under way.

But the British Empire did not simply wither away; a new voluntary organisation of sovereign states, the Commonwealth, took its place. The Commonwealth was, admittedly, more difficult to define, far less certain of its identity and lacking the coherence of British rule. Nonetheless, at its best it seemed to offer a shining example of an international grouping dedicated by and large to political, and co-operating on terms of equality of status.

In this lively, clear and scholarly study, Denis Judd and Peter Slinn have put into sharp focus the evolution of the modern Commonwealth. The book begins with a survey of the Edwardian Empire and ends with one of the most recent triumphs of Commonwealth statesmanship, the establishment of a self-governing Zimbabwe. Between these two chronological extremes, the significant events in the twentieth-century history of the Empire-Commonwealth are analysed, including the impact of the two world wars, the development of dominion status, the drive for Indian independence, the growth of African nationalism and white-settler reaction to that growth, Labour and Conservative attitudes to the post-1945 Empire and Commonwealth, the apparently savage blow dealt to the Commonwealth by Britain's membership of the EEC, and the strains placed upon Commonwealth unity by the British backlash to non-white mass immigration, by the establishment of apartheid in South Africa, and by Rhodesia's unilateral declaration of independence. The book ends with an optimistic survey of today's Commonwealth organisation.

Reviews

"A clear account of the evolution of the Commonwealth in the twentieth century…[it will] introduce readers to a large and complex subject."
- A. G. Hopkins, British Book News

"This attractively written and lively [book] is the result of excellent teamwork…Denis Judd is a prodigiously productive historian…highly recommended."
- Commonwealth Bookshelf