Britains Retreat from Empire in East Asia, 190580
The decline of British power in Asia, from a high point in 1905, when Britains ally Japan vanquished the Russian Empire, apparently reducing the perceived threat that Russia posed to British interests in India and China, to the end of the twentieth century, when its influence had dwindled to virtually nothing, is one of the most important themes in understanding the modern history of East and South-East Asia. This book considers a range of issues that illustrate the significance and influence of the British Empire in Asia and the nature of Britains imperial decline. Subjects covered include the challenges posed by Germany and Japan during the First World War, British efforts at international co-operation in the interwar period, the British relationship with Korea and Japan in the wake of the Second World War and the complicated path of decolonization in South-East Asia and Hong Kong.
Antony Best is an Associate Professor in International History at the London School of Economics, UK.
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Britainss Retreat from Empire in East Asia, 190580
Edited by Antony Best
First published 2017
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2017 Antony Best
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Best, Antony, 1964- editor of compilation.
Title: Britains retreat from empire in East Asia, 1905-1980 / edited by Antony Best.
Description: Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2017. |
Series: Routledge studies in the modern history of Asia ; 122 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016017513| ISBN 9780415705608 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315889603 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Great BritainForeign relationsEast Asia. | East AsiaForeign relationsGreat Britain. | DecolonizationEast AsiaHistory20th century. | Great BritainColoniesAsiaHistory20th century. | ImperialismHistory20th century. | World politics1900-1945. | World politics1945-1989.
Classification: LCC DS518.4 .B75 2017 | DDC 325/.3410950904dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016017513
ISBN: 978-0-415-70560-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-88960-3 (ebk)
This book is dedicated to the memory of our friend, colleague and mentor Peter Lowe
Robert Barnes studied for his undergraduate and Masters degrees at the University of Manchester where he was taught and supervised by Peter Lowe. He went on to receive his PhD in International History at the LSE in 2011 before being appointed a Lecturer in History at York St John University. His first monograph titled, The US, the UN and the Korean War: Communism in the Far East and the American Struggle for Hegemony in the Cold War, was published by IB Tauris in 2014. He has also published a number of journal articles and chapters in collections relating to the Korean War.
Antony Best is Associate Professor of International History at the London School of Economics. His most recent single-authored book is British Intelligence and the Japanese Challenge in Asia, 19141941 (2002), and he is one of the co-authors of International History of the Twentieth Century and Beyond, 3rd edition (Routledge, 2015).
Roger Buckley is an academic visitor at St Antonys Oxford, and was previously professor of international history at International Christian University, Tokyo.
David Clayton is a Senior Lecturer in History at the University of York and has written extensively on the history of the British Empire, with a particular focus on Hong Kong. He has written on changes to patterns of colonial production and consumption, and on laws regulating economic life. His new project is an economic-cum-environmental history of water in Hong Kong, 194580.
T.G. Fraser is Emeritus Professor of History at Ulster University and former Provost of its Magee campus. He edited, with Peter Lowe, Conflict and Amity in East Asia: Essays in Honour of Ian Nish (Palgrave, 1992), and is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society.
Harumi Goto-Shibata is Professor in International History in the Department of Advanced Social and International Studies, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, at the University of Tokyo. She is the author of
