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HST2104 Postcolonial France and Britain: Empire and its legacies since 1945 |
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Aims/Description: In 1942, Winston Churchill declared, 'I have not become the King's First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire'. However, between 1945-1960 a quarter of the world's inhabitants revolted against colonialism and colonial rule. So how did we get from Churchill's certainty that the Empire will endure to the emergence of 65 new sovereign states - and what were the consequences in Europe of that massive shift? This module looks at postwar Western Europe through an imperial lens, applying new perspectives from the field of postcolonial studies which argue that empire and metropole should not be examined separately. The module covers three main themes: the question of what empire and its loss meant to the colonisers; migration from former colonies to Europe and its consequences; and the memory, representation and historiography of empire. Focusing on Britain and France the module uses a wide range of sources and approaches to explore cultural, social and political aspects of post-colonial Europe. You will learn what empire meant to Europeans in the twentieth century, and in what ways colonialism and its legacies have shaped the history of Europe since the end of formal imperial rule between 1945 and 1980. Over the course of the semester we'll examine a variety of topics, beginning with an introduction to postcolonialism as a theory and a means of examining and understanding the world. We'll then start exploring how the colonial empires were perceived at the end of the Second World War. We'll look at the late-colonial state and new forms of colonial rule, including changing ideas about colonial governance, race and equality. Then we'll move to the failure of the late-colonial project: was the decision to withdraw from empire an orderly retreat? In particular, we'll focus on reactions to and debates about decolonisation in Algeria and Kenya in metropolitan societies. We'll examine the experiences of the Windrush generation, and questions of race relations, policing, and the emergence of racial discourses in politics and society.The focus here will be on the 1958-70s for the British case (Enoch Powell) and the 1960s in France with the emergence of the Front Nationale and the emergence of anti-racism campaigns and movements since 1968. We will finish our semester examining the 'second generation' with questions on ethnicity, difference and belonging through the concepts of 'post-colonial fracturing'. Through sport, culture and music we'll look at national identity - was the 1998 French world cup team a representation of multicultural France? We'll end the semester on the question of colonial nostalgia, former settler's repatriation to Europe, and the problems of commemoration in the French case.
Restrictions on availability: Students must have taken 40 credits of HST modules at Level 1
Information on the department responsible for this unit (History):
URLs used in these pages are subject to year-on-year change. For this reason we recommend that you do not bookmark these pages or set them as favourites. Teaching methods and assessment displayed on this page are indicative for 2025-26.
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