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19 - Decolonization and the Cold War

from Part ii - Paradigm Shifts and Turning Points in the Era of Globalization, 1500 to the Present

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 October 2023

Cathie Carmichael
Affiliation:
University of East Anglia
Matthew D'Auria
Affiliation:
University of East Anglia
Aviel Roshwald
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington DC
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Summary

There is a rather obvious convergence point between the Cold War, decolonization, and nationhood. The end of formal European colonial rule across most of the globe in the mid-twentieth century precipitated new states, on old territory, which required a national identity for legitimacy. In colonies where colonial rule ended through violent armed struggle, that armed struggle required a particularly potent vision of what people were fighting for. Once independence came, the consolidation of the state also demanded an answer to the question: who are we as a people, what binds us together? The Cold War, founded on an assumed clash between ideas and cultures even if activated as military and strategic conflict, prompted the same questions. The Cold War demanded a statement of national identity in two respects. First, as an ideological conflict the Cold War influenced the language by which nations articulated the belief systems that supposedly bound them together and informed their relationship with others.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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References

Further Reading

Barrington, L.W. (ed.), After Independence: Making and Protecting the Nation in Postcolonial and Postcommunist States (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bhabha, Homi (ed.), Nation and Narrative (London: Routledge, 1990).Google Scholar
Chen, Kuan-Hsing, Asia as Method: Toward Deimperialization (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010).Google Scholar
Hecht, Gabrielle (ed.), Entangled Geographies: Empire and Technopolitics in the Global Cold War (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lazarus, Neil, Nationalism and Cultural Practice in the Postcolonial World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sluga, Glenda, Internationalism in the Age of Nationalism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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