Gale Primary Source Archives:
Decolonization: The Politics of Independence in Former Colonial Territories

Decolonization: The Politics of Independence in Former Colonial Territories
Quick overview

First-hand Perspectives from Previously Colonised and Commonwealth Regions.
Decolonization: Politics and Independence in Former Colonial and Commonwealth Territories presents political ephemera and organizational material produced in over 70 countries and territories around the world throughout the twentieth century. The collection helps researchers explore decolonization as a historical process, specifically the changing or adapting of systems from an imposed imperial or colonial structure after 1945 and up to the present day. It also sheds light on the politics and processes of national political developments that followed decolonization and through which the former colonies negotiated their own agency and their own futures.

Decolonization: The Politics and Independence in Former Colonial and Commonwealth Territories is integrated into Gale’s cloud-based Text and Data Mining (TDM) environment, Gale Digital Scholar Lab. Researchers are invited to take their digital humanities scholarship on pathways to new discoveries with powerful analytical tools that enable enhanced storytelling through data. The Lab removes barriers to entry for researchers of all skill levels, with accessible, intuitive workflows that help users analyze content regardless of technical experience.

Researchers can draw comparisons between different political movements within newly independent countries and territories in the 1960s and 1970s, alongside Commonwealth territories including Australia and Canada, as well as to compare how and why self-rule developed differently by region. Party and grassroots politics in these regions often took many forms and this collection gives insight into the range of political movements and the individuals who shaped developments in the new systems.