Human Rights and Decolonization: New Perspectives and Open Questions

Menschenrechte im Schatten kolonialer Gewalt: Die
Dekolonisierungskriege in Kenia und Algerien 1945–1962
Fabian Klose, R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 2009. x 346 pages.
(forthcoming in English translation
from University of Pennsylvania Press)Decolonization and the Evolution of International Human Rights
Roland Burke, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010. 264 pages.In the global history of human rights in the twentieth
century, decolonization is one of the most interesting
fields to study. The independence of practically all of
Africa’s and Asia’s nations, gained in the almost miraculously
short span of the two decades after the Second World
War, was one of the most dramatic processes of political
emancipation in world history. The events and the
consequences of decolonization were to profoundly shape
international politics until at least the end of the century.
Viewed from the angle of human rights history, the setting
for the struggle against colonial domination after World War
II greatly differed from what it had been before.