Early Decolonization
Discover the seeds of decolonization — the early 20th-century movements that challenged colonial rule across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
Early decolonization (c. 1900–1945) refers to the initial phase of anti-colonial movements that challenged European imperial rule across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East — planting seeds that would flower into full independence movements after World War II.
The roots were diverse. In India, the Indian National Congress and later Gandhi's mass movements built an unstoppable demand for self-rule. In China, the collapse of the Qing dynasty and the struggle between Nationalists and Communists represented a fierce assertion of national sovereignty against foreign domination. In the Middle East, the mandates imposed after World War I generated resentment and resistance. In Africa, the Pan-Africanist and Négritude movements created intellectual frameworks for challenging colonial legitimacy.
World War II was the decisive catalyst. It weakened the colonial powers, discredited the racial ideologies used to justify imperialism, demonstrated that colonial subjects could fight and govern, and created a new international order in which self-determination was an acknowledged principle. The postwar wave of decolonization — from India (1947) to Ghana (1957) to Algeria (1962) — owed everything to the groundwork laid in this earlier period.
Lessons covering this topic
Browse all lessons →Gandhi & Indian Independence
Nonviolence as a weapon against empire.
Mandates & the Middle East
Sykes-Picot, Balfour, and the seeds of modern conflict.
China — Warlords to Revolution
From imperial collapse to Mao's Long March.
Pan-Africanism & Négritude
Intellectual movements that challenged colonial rule.