Independence and Development in the Global South

Questions: * What was distinctive about the end of Europe’s African and Asian empires as compared to earlier examples of imperial disintegration? * Change: nation-states overthrowing empires who ruled over them for centuries * African revolution focused on nationalism, chain reaction that created many nation-states * Africans felt they were equivalent to their formal rulers despite the difference in culture * Revolutions around the world shared aspects of nationalism – Self-determination: belief that many distinct peoples exist and each deserve an independent state of their own * Austrian and Ottoman empires collapsed after WWI, Russian Empire gave rise to Soviet Union, German and Japanese empires collapsed after WWII, Mexican Revolution (1910) against U.S. presence which was a non-imperialist state -> colonialism and imperialism rendered illegitimate

* What various factors contributed to the end of colonial empires in the 20th century? * Christianity and increasing democratic views contradicted the dictatorship colonial rule and the racism that came with it * Change: Nationalism drove colonialism to create and maintain imperialist states and now played a major part in their disintegration * Conjuncture – World wars weakened Europe, Superpowers US & USSR opposed colonialism ex. US values of liberty and equality, UN served as an internationally recognized organization that condemned colonialism * Second and third-generation Western-educated elites recognized gap between Western values and reality in the colonies * African veterans who fought for the allies alongside Europeans during World War II started to view themselves as equals * Colonies integrated into a global economic network, local modernized elites committed to remaining part of the network -> colonialism seemed unnecessary – empires able to retain economic interests w/o the expense of providing a government

* What obstacles confronted leaders of