The Oxford Handbook of the Ends of Empire offers the most comprehensive treatment of the causes, course, and consequences of the ends of empire in the twentieth century. The volume's contributors convey the global reach of decolonization, with chapters analysing the empires of Western Europe, Eastern Europe, China and Japan.

The Handbook combines broad, regional treatments of decolonization with chapter contributions constructed around particular themes or social issues. It considers how the history of decolonization is being rethought as a result of the rise of the 'new' imperial history, and its emphasis on race, gender, and culture, as well as the more recent growth of interest in histories of globalization, transnational history, and histories of migration and diaspora, humanitarianism and development, and human rights.

The Handbook, in other words, seeks to identify the processes and commonalities of experience that make decolonization a unique historical phenomenon with a lasting resonance. In light of decades of historical and social scientific scholarship on modernization, dependency, neo-colonialism, 'failed state' architectures and post-colonial conflict, the obvious question that begs itself is 'when did empires actually end?' In seeking to unravel this most basic dilemma the Handbook explores the relationship between the study of decolonization and the study of globalization. It connects histories of the late-colonial and post-colonial worlds, and considers the legacies of empire in European and formerly colonised societies.

Martin Thomas is Professor of Imperial History and Director of the Centre for the Study of War, State, and Society at the University of Exeter. A specialist in the politics of contested decolonization, his most recent publications are Violence and Colonial Order: Police, Workers and Protest in the European Colonial Empires, 1918-1940 (2012), Fight or Flight: Britain, France, and their Roads from Empire (2014), and, with co-author Richard Toye, Arguing about Empire: Imperial Rhetoric in Britain and France (2017). He is an Independent Social Research Foundation Fellow and coordinator of a Leverhulme Trust research network, Understanding Insurgencies: Resonances from the Colonial Past.

Andrew Thompson's previous publications include The Empire Strikes Back? The Impact of Imperialism on Britain from the Mid-Nineteenth Century (2005), Empire and Globalisation. Networks of People, Goods and Capital in the British World, c.1850-1914 (2010), and an edited collection, Britain's Experience of Empire in the Twentieth Century (2011). He is currently Professor of Global and Imperial History at the University of Oxford and Co-Director of the Oxford Centre for Global History. He is a Professorial Fellow of Nuffield College. He serves on the editorial boards of South African Historical Journal and Twentieth Century British History.

Acknowledgements
Introduction: Rethinking decolonization: A New Research Agenda for the 21st Century
1918 and the End of Europe's Land Empires, Robert Gerwarth
An Empire Unredeemed: Tracing the Ottoman State's Path towards Collapse, Ryan Gingeras
Part I: National Perspectives
1. Britain, Sarah E. Stockwell
2. France: the longue durée of French Decolonization, Emmanuelle Saada
3. Germany, Andreas Eckert
4. Exceptional Italy? The Many Ends of the Italian Colonial Empire, Nicola Labanca
5. Après nous, le déluge: Belgium, Decolonization, and the Congo, Matthew G. Stanard
6. Portugal, Norrie MacQueen
7. The Collapse of the Romanov Empire, Alexey Miller
8. Empire by Imitation? US Economic Imperialism within a British World System, Marc-William Palen
9. Rethinking Empire: Lessons from Imperial and Post Imperial Japan, Louise Conrad Young
10. China, Tehyun Ma
Part II: Regional Perspectives
11. Decolonization in South Asia: The Long View, Joya Chatterji
12. Global Wars and Decolonization in East and South East Asia, 1927-1954, Christopher Goscha
13. The End of Empire in the Maghreb: The Common Heritage and Distinct Destinies of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, Sylvie Thénault
14. Decolonization in Tropical Africa, Frederick Cooper
15. The Caribbean, Spencer Mawby
16. Eastern Europe, James Mark and Quinn Slobodian
17. Decolonization and the Arid World, Robert S. G. Fletcher
18. The Open Ends of the Dutch Empire and the Indonesian Past: Sites, Scholarly Networks, and Moral Geographies of Greater India across Decolonization, Marieke Bloembergen
Part III: Thematic Perspectives
19. Self-determination and Decolonization, Brad Simpson
20. Anti-colonialism, Christopher J. Lee
21. Unravelling the Relationships between Humanitarianism, Human Rights, and Decolonization: Time for a Radical Rethink?, Andrew Thompson
22. Decolonization and Cold War, Piero Gleijeses
23. Violence, Insurgency, and Ends of Empire, Martin Thomas
24. Nationalism, Development, and Welfare Colonialism: Gender and the Dynamics of Decolonization, Barbara Bush
25. Repressive Developmentalism: Idioms, Repertoires, and Trajectories in Late Colonialism, Miguel Bandeira Jerónimo
26. Islamic Revolutionaries and the End of Empire, David Motadel
27. Refugees and the End of Empire, Panikos Panayi
Part IV: Legacies and Memories
28. Postcolonial Migrations to Europe, Elizabeth Buettner
29. Beyond Dependency: North-South Relationships in the Age of Development, Joseph Morgan Hodge
30. Imperial Business Interests, Decolonization and Post- Colonial Diversification, Nicholas J. White
31. Film and the End of Empire: Deconstructing and Reconstructing Colonial Pasts and their Legacy in World Cinemas, Paul Cooke
32. Remnants of Empire, Michael J. Parsons
33. Literature and Decolonization, Charles Forsdick
34. Apologies, Restitutions and Compensation: Making Reparations for Colonialism, Robert Aldrich