The Ends of Empire

This book offers a fresh analysis of constitutional, economic, demographic and cultural developments in the overseas territories of Britain, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Spain, the United States, Australia and New Zealand. Ranging from Greenland to Gibraltar, the Falklands to the Faroes, and encompassing islands in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans, and the Caribbean, these territories command attention because of their unique status, and for the ways that they occasionally become flashpoints for rival international claims, dubious financial activities, illegal migration and clashes between metropolitan and local mores. Connell and Aldrich argue that a negotiated dependency brings greater benefits to these territories than might independence.

John Connell is Professor of Human Geography at the University of Sydney. He has published widely on development and migration in the Pacific region. Robert Aldrich is Professor of European History at the University of Sydney. His recent books include Banished Potentates: Dethroning and exiling indigenous monarchs under British and French colonial rule, 1815-1955.