Britain, France and the Decolonization of Africa

257 Pages·2017·30.02 MB·English

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Britain, France and the Decolonization

of Africa
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Britain, France and

the Decolonization
of Africa
Future Imperfect?
Edited by Andrew W.M. Smith and
Chris Jeppesen
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First published in 2017 by
UCL Press
University College London
Gower Street
London WC1E 6BT
Available to download free: www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press
Text © Contributors, 2017
Images © Contributors, 2017
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from The British Library.
This book is published under a Creative Common 4.0 International license
(CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work;
to adapt the work and to make commercial use of the work providing attribution is
made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your
use of the work). Attribution should include the following information:
Andrew W.M. Smith and Chris Jeppesen (eds.), Britain, France and the Decolonization
of Africa. London, UCL Press, 2017. https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781911307730
Further details about CC BY licenses are available at http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/
ISBN: 978-1-911307-74-7 (Hbk.)
ISBN: 978-1-911307-75-4 (Pbk.)
ISBN: 978-1-911307-73-0 (PDF)
ISBN: 978-1-911307-76-1 (epub)
ISBN: 978-1-911307-77-8 (mobi)
ISBN: 978-1-78735-003-8 (html)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781911307730
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Acknowledgements

This book emerged from discussions at a conference organized by the
editors at University College London (UCL) in 2014, which proved an
inspiring and productive exploration of the field. We would like to thank
all the participants for their input and their insight in shaping the ideas
behind this work, as well as the funders of that conference: the Royal
Historical Society, UCL History and the Joint Faculty Institute of Graduate
Studies at UCL.
In addition, both editors would like to thank Margot Finn for her
generous advice and willing guidance during our time at UCL. We are
grateful to all the contributors to the volume for making this such an
enjoyable and engaging process, while Chris Penfold, our editor at UCL
Press, has shown much-a ppreciated forbearance during the publication
process. Holly Smith and Susan Imrie both provided invaluable sup-
port, editorial advice and patience during the preparation of the volume.
Likewise, we both owe great thanks to Penelope Smith for being born two
weeks late and affording us the space to finish writing!
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Contents

List of figures ix
Notes on contributors x
Introduction: development, contingency and entanglement:
decolonization in the conditional 1
Andrew W. M. Smith and Chris Jeppesen
Section 1 Development 15
1 Nation, state and agency: evolving historiographies of African
decolonization 17
Michael Collins
2 ‘The winds of change are blowing economically’:
the Labour Party and British overseas development,
1940s– 1960s 43
Charlotte Lydia Riley
3 ‘Oil will set us free’: the hydrocarbon industry and the
Algerian decolonization process 62
Marta Musso
Section 2 Contingency 85
4 Future imperfect: colonial futures, contingencies and the
end of French empire 87
Andrew W. M. Smith
5 The dynamics of anti- apartheid: international solidarity,
human rights and decolonization 111
Robert Skinner
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Section 3 Entanglement 131
6 ‘A worthwhile career for a man who is not entirely
self- seeking’: service, duty and the Colonial Service
during decolonization 133
Chris Jeppesen
7 Protecting empire from without: francophone African migrant
workers, British West Africa and French efforts to maintain
power in Africa, 1945–1 960 156
Joanna Warson
Conclusion: the conditional as a category 172
Chris Jeppesen and Andrew W. M. Smith
Afterword: Achilles and the tortoise: the tortoise’s view of late
colonialism and decolonization 177
Martin Shipway
Notes 186
Select bibliography 224
Index 239
viii ContEntS