Ebook: The Struggle against Imperialism: Anticolonialism and the Cold War

This concise and engaging text argues that the Cold War and anti-colonial movements should properly be studied and taught together, not as distinct developments, but rather as interwoven aspects of a complex global transformation. The authors provide a cogent and concise description of the post–World War II era and reveal connective dimensions of that era that remain hidden in books that focus primarily on either the Cold War or the struggles against imperial rule. It not only deals with anti-colonialism and Cold War together but also portrays the Cold War as a contest between “anti-imperialist empires,” capped by the collapse of one of them—the multicultural trans-regional Soviet realm—in a work that is engaging and accessible to both students and general readers.

Edward H. Judge and John W. Langdon are professors of history at Le Moyne College. Their books include Connections: A World History and The Cold War through Documents: A Global History.

"In this rich and pithy book, two well-known scholars of the Cold War provide an enormous service for those seeking to understand the origins and limits of decolonization. Historians of empire have long contended with the question of what the retreat of formal empires actually ended and what legacies of colonialism survived into the present day. By intersecting the histories of the Cold War and decolonization on a global scale, Judge and Langdon guide readers to an understanding of the superpower and systemic struggles that shaped and limited the end of empire and the manner in which the fight for independence in turn fashioned the contours of the Cold War. This book is about nothing less significant than the production of the world in which we live."
— Trevor R. Getz, San Francisco State University