Abstract
In 1946, Britain’s vice-like grip over its colonies began to loosen. Thoroughly exhausted by the war, which by the end of the conflict had consumed over half the country’s Gross National Product (GNP), the United Kingdom was a ravaged land, if not one as thoroughly devastated as its continental neighbors. Unlike during the First World War, this time around Great Britain had been forced to cannibalize its own resources and thus had a weak hand with which to rebuild, a troubling scenario when faced with the reality of the loss of 30 percent of its total housing, 3.5 million homes in London alone.1 Combined with ceaseless pressure from the Americans to give up its overseas possessions, Britain no longer possessed the will nor the way to maintain its empire.
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Notes
Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945 (London: Vintage Press, 2010. 1st published 2005), pp. 14
Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India (New York: The John Day Company, 1946), p. 543.
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© 2013 Manu Bhagavan
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Bhagavan, M. (2013). The New Hope. In: India and the Quest for One World. The Palgrave Macmillan Transnational History Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137349835_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137349835_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-46812-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-34983-5
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