The imperialism of French decolonisation: French policy and the Anglo-American response in Tunisia and Morocco. By Ryo Ikeda

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At the end of the Second World War, the British government expected only a few of its overseas territories to be independent within a generation, and the French government ruled out political autonomy, let alone independence. Yet by the 1960s, almost all British and French former dependencies had achieved independence, and by the 1970s, Portugal had also agreed to dissolve its colonies. In a detailed and thoroughly documented monograph, Ryo Ikeda uses the Moroccan and Tunisian cases to explore why post-Second World War decolonization, with a few notable exceptions like Algeria and Indochina, was relatively smooth and more rapid than most observers had anticipated. In so doing, the author goes beyond the local, international and metropolitan elements frequently used to explain decolonization, to examine the unique problems surrounding both the French decision on Tunisian internal autonomy in July 1954, which led to independence in March 1956, and the decision on Moroccan independence in November 1955. Both events, as the author notes, have received little scholarly attention.