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Professor Antony Best, SAR 3.14

This course is available on the BA in Geography, BA in History, BA in Social Anthropology, BSc in Economic History and Geography, BSc in Government and History, BSc in International Relations, BSc in International Relations and Chinese, BSc in International Relations and History, BSc in Politics, BSc in Politics and History, BSc in Politics and International Relations and BSc in Social Anthropology. This course is available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit and to General Course students.

An introductory survey of events outside Europe in the twentieth century, with a particular emphasis on the collapse of the Western colonial empires, the development of relations between the West and the new states within Asia and Africa, revolutionary developments in Latin America, and the rise of non-Western models of political development. The course includes the state of the European empires in the first half of the century; the Japanese challenge to the West; the Chinese revolution; Indian independence; the decolonization process in Asia and Africa; the Japanese developmental state; the rise of the non-aligned movement; Caribbean states’ independence and the Cuban Revolution; the development of the Arab and non-Arab Middle East; American and Soviet relations with the Third World; post-independence South Asia; the modernization and underdevelopment debates; post-independence Africa; China under Mao and Deng; the Iranian Revolution.

Lectures will be online. The School aims to run in-person classes, subject to circumstances, with some online provision if and where necessary.

There will be a reading week in the Michaelmas and the Lent Terms.

Students will be asked to write at least three essays and to present a number of brief class reports

W G Beasley, The Rise of Modern Japan (1990); A Best, J Hanhimaki, J Maiolo and K Schulze, International History of the Twentieth Century (2001); J Darwin, Britain and Decolonization (1988); J P Dunbabin, International Relations since 1945, Vol 1, The Cold War, the Great Powers and their Allies (1994) Vol 2, The Post-Imperial Age, The Great Powers and the Wider World (1994); D Fieldhouse, Black Africa, 1945-1980 (1986); Goldschmidt, A Concise History of the Middle East; R Holland, European Decolonization, 1918-81 (1985); W Keylor, The Twentieth Century World (1984); S Sarkar, Modern India, 1885-1947 (1983); J Spence, The Search for Modern China (1990); M Yapp, The Near East since the First World War (1991); Skidmore and Smith, Modern Latin America (2005).

Exam (100%, duration: 3 hours) in the summer exam period.

Some departments have produced short videos to introduce their courses. Please refer to the course selection videos index page for further information.