Monarchies and Decolonisation in Asia

Robert Aldrich, Cindy McCreery, Alan Lester

Monarchies and Decolonisation provides new perspectives on the role of European colonial monarchies, and the monarchies of Asia, in the late colonial period, during the process of decolonization, and in its aftermath. With case studies drawn from former colonies in South and Southeast Asia, as well as Japan and Thailand, contributors examine the changes in forms of government - from colonial monarchies to those of independent states, from monarchies to republics, and from monarchies with empires to those which no longer had them - in the lead-up to the decolonization of India and Indonesia in the 1940s down to to the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997. It shows how monarchies, with or without success, tried to accommodate the independence of former colonies, restructuring themselves for political transition, challenges from republicanism and radicalism and, in some cases,...