NIOD rewind Episode 44 - The End of Empires and a World Remade

Did European colonialism truly end in the 20th century, as we often assume? In this episode Anne van Mourik (NIOD) speaks with Martin Thomas (Exeter University) about his book The End of Empires and a World Remade: A Global History of Decolonization (Princeton University Press). He argues that decolonization was not just the transfer of power from colonizers to the colonized, but a global, often violent process that forged new alliances, reshaped international connections, and left behind enduring colonial legacies. In this episode we ask: How to rethink decolonization? If empires were so powerful, military, politically, economically, why and how did they collapse? And how is colonial violence different than violence in non-imperial spaces? Photo: Civilian are pushing a military jeep. 1 August 1962. Wikimedia Commons.