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Article: Decolonisation after Suez: Retreat or Rationalisation?
- Article from:
- The Australian Journal of Politics and History
- Article date:
- September 1, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 University of Queensland Press. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Suez crisis of 1956 has come to be regarded as one of the turning-points in the history of Europe. The failure of the Anglo-French intervention -- in stark contrast to that of 1882, which left the British in power in Egypt for almost seventy years -- is most often seen as the end of the colonial era, as opening the floodgates to anti-colonial movements and the tidal wave of independent states that were created during the 1960s. The failure of the combined British, French and Israeli forces to impose their control over the canal and to bring Nasser to his knees demonstrated that European imperialists no longer wielded the power that was required if they were to continue ...