In order to understand the nature of eighteenth-century Spanish political development, the highest organs of central government (Councils, Boards, Ministries, Secretariats, etcetera), and the organs of regional and provincial government ought to be examined together with institutional practices such as: hacienda (the management of the public Finances or Treasury); fiscalidad (the system of taxation) and fomento (the promotion and protection of public works, buildings, etcetera). The latter is one of the favourite terms of the Enlightenment and represents the government's intention to intervene directly not only in social organization but also in economic activity. Private law (derecho privado) is another aspect that can provide a key to the understanding of family relations and forms of ownership in their interaction with norms of ideological behaviour and implementation. Finally, it is also necessary to analyze the role played by the administrative agents, or civil servants, who manned the state bureaucracy.

In 1861 the book Java: Or, How to Manage a Colony, by J.W.B. Money, which compared the deficits suffered by British India with the profitability of the cultivation of Java and Madura, caused considerable discussion among the Dutch politicians. At an international level, the last word has yet to be spoken in the debate among historians and economists on the profits and losses of former colonies.

In reconstructing the metropolitan experience of the ‘end of empire’, one of the key questions might be posed as follows: how much did it really hurt? Was it a mere glancing blow to the head, or some more crushing punishment delivered to the chin or solar plexus? How successful – to pursue the boxing metaphor - was the metropole at improvising a ring-craft to come out on top, or at least avert defeat, in the contest of decolonization? This article will assess the extent to which the loss of empire for the British constituted an agonizing and disorienting experience, or whether it was a ‘rite of passage’ accomplished with relative ease and a soothing sense of inevitability.

The development of Colombia's import/export economy was accompanied by numerous violent conflicts from the second half of the nineteenth century onward. Craftsmen were among those who fiercely opposed the model of ‘outward-looking development’ (desarrollo hacia afuera). With independence this group initially increased in number during the first half of the nineteenth century. Around 1870, their proportion of the gainfully employed male population may have come to about ten per cent. More than sixty per cent of all working women were involved in handicraft activities. Artesanos, as craftsmen were listed in Colombian population statistics, were one of the most wide-spread occupational classes until the turn of the century. In nearly all towns and cities there were tanners, shoemakers, weavers, dyers, tailors, blacksmiths, bricklayers, carpenters, joiners, and potters, as well as the newly introduced trades of lithographers and letterpress printers, to provide for the local consumers’ demands. However, artisans differed from region to region in terms of quantity (absolutely and as a percentage of the total population), composition of professions, proportion of women and children, as well as in their ethnicity. Moreover, a largely rural textile industry (based on family concerns) developed near Pasto as well as in Santander and Boyacá and became famous beyond these regions. In contrast to urban manufacture in Bogotá and Bucaramanga dominated by mestizoes, and that of Cali and the Atlantic coast dominated by mulattos, these weavers were mainly of Indian descent. In Tolima and in parts of Antioquia and Santander palm straw hats (‘Panama hats’) were produced - mainly by Indian women. This headgear was priced so reasonably that the hats were exported in large quantities to the West Indies and the USA.

On the night when Nelson Mandela made his acceptance speech as victor of South Africa's first democratic election, he paid tribute to ‘some of South Africa's great leaders including John Dube, Josiah Gumede, Moorooghia Naidoo, Dr Abdurahman, Chief Luthuli, Lilian Ngoyi, Bram Fisher, Helen Joseph, Yusuf Dadoo, Moses Kotane, Chris Hani and Oliver Tambo. They should have been here to celebrate with us, for this is their achievement too’.

Although I studied, among other things like linguistics and anthropology, the history of Africa, I cannot be called ‘a real historian’. My view on decolonization, literally throwing away colonization – be it a very slow and sometimes painful process – has been initiated especially by a long experience in different fields. I am one of the rare, still surviving specimen who have lived (Congo 1952-1958) and worked (Railway BCK, Société Générale) in the colonial world, and later participated modestly in the Round Table Conference of 1960 which led to the independence of the Belgian Congo. On the other hand I have undergone, due to my African studies (Ghent 1958-1962), a complete change in knowledge and mentality. Having been involved in the birth of a ‘Vlaamse Vriendenkring’ (Kolwezi, former Katanga) and later in the open and sometimes heated discussions about ‘cultural autonomy’ in Belgium (1962-1965), I finally became in the seventies a fervent defender of international thinking, global education based upon interdisciplinarity and interculturality.

A la suite des dernières grandes opérations dirigées par le général Challe, fin 1959, on peut considérer que l'armée française gagne la guerre d'Algérie sur le terrain. Les barrages aux frontières prouvent leur efficacité. Faute de soutien logistique extérieur, les derniers groupes armés importants de l'Armée de libération nationale sont détruits ou réduits à l'impuissance à l'intérieur des départements algériens. Aussi bien en ville que dans le bled, si l'on excepte quelques actions sporadiques, la souveraineté de la puissance coloniale n'est plus menacée. Mais ce succès reste sans lendemain. Les relents d'une guerre civile franco-française et la réalité des règlements de compte algéro-algériens rendent cette victoire inutile. Celle-ci est d'ailleurs emportée par le flot d'une quadruple défaite, politique, diplomatique, économique et morale, dont les mécanismes, bien connus, sortent du cadre de cette étude.

Brazil's active foreign policy tradition dates from the beginning of its existence as an independent state in the early nineteenth century. More than the former Spanish colonies in Latin America, Brazil considered the international recognition of its sovereignty an important goal. Therefore, Brazil demonstrated in the 1820s a great interest in the establishment of diplomatic relations and the negotiation of commercial treaties with the European nations and the United States.

In November and December 1995, a discussion raged on the H-LATAM Internet newsgroup, surrounding the phenomenon of caudillismo. It centred mostly on Bolivian caudillo Mariano Melgarejo (1864–1871), and the editors of this journal believed that the way in which the discussion developed, indicated that it might be interesting to offer our subscribers an edited version of the whole discussion. In this manner, those not ‘connected’ may also benefit from the goings-on of the Internet.

This article will take the British counter-insurgency campaigns in Palestine during the years 1936–1948 as a main focus of interest. This is because these campaigns presented those involved with complex ethical issues and intractable moral dilemmas. A variety of sources has been consulted; particular attention has been paid to collective memories and reflections recorded in regimental histories, and to individual recollections obtained from interviews with veterans.

Ever since its publication in 1966, Tussen Neutraliteit en Imperialisme (‘Between Neutrality and Imperialism’) has been the standard work on Dutch policy towards China between 1863 and 1901. In this study the author, F. van Dongen, stresses the adherence to neutrality towards the strong European neighbour states as the fundamental guideline for Dutch foreign policy, not only within Europe but also in the Far East. This policy stemmed from the fact that the European balance-of-power system had been extended to China in the late nineteenth century, through the participation of most European states in imperialist policies concerning that country. According to Van Dongen this adherence to neutrality slowed down imperialist tendencies, as the Netherlands were anxious to avoid entering in conflicts between the great powers, but at the same time the Dutch were forced to ‘play a modest part in the common Western policy towards China’. Whenever the great powers took a united stand the Netherlands must follow suit. So as a result of its European policy the Netherlands joined the imperialist powers in China, although usually careful not to take the initiative. The Netherlands were, therefore, classified by Van Dongen as a reluctant and generally passive element of imperialism in China: ‘the Dutch were at worst accessories after the fact’. Finally he concluded that whenever Dutch actions concerning China ‘savoured of imperialism, this was not the result of a deliberate policy to exercise control over the empire or to obtain Chinese territory, but an almost accidental by-product of the general aim of promoting the Netherlands’ economic interest'.

In a seminal paper published nearly forty years ago, Frank Thistlethwaite argued that the migration process ought to be liberated from the stereotypical historiographical tradition. This tradition offered a homogeneous image of undifferentiated waves of uprooted peasants and artisans suffering from epidemics of emigration fever during times of crisis. Instead, he argued, a close study of the individual or group experience of emigrants from particular regions, to specific destinations, would reveal a great deal about the motives, characteristics and pathways of people participating in highly distinctive movements. Thus, emigration might be seen not as a phenomenon in its own right, but as an aspect of a process that stimulated the seasonal circulatory movements of specific occupational groups not only within Europe, but extending outwards around the Mediterranean basin and often culminating in a circular navigation of the ‘Atlantic lake’. For millions of European workers, a natural extension of this ‘proletariat globetrotting’ was an individually-organized one-way voyage to the New World.

As a native of the Netherlands, I have been imbued with an awareness of the history of the Second World War in both Europe and the Pacific ever since I was a child, though I must admit that the Japanese occupation of the Dutch colony in the Dutch East Indies from 1942 to 1945 plays a less important part in my imagination than thefiveyears of German occupation of the Netherlands. My parents and brothers can directly recollect the latter dark period, and I see it vividly in my mind's eye, born (in 1948) and bred as I was in Rotterdam, the city whose centre was razed to the ground by the German air raid in May 1940. The effects of the bombs were still clearly visible during the years in which I was growing up there. Given this double Dutch memory – memory of the hostilities in Europe, and memory of South-East Asia – it hardly seems fortuitous that the Dutch scholar Ian Buruma chose the German and Japanese memory of the Second World War and of the War in the Pacific as the theme for his 1994 publication The Wages of Guilt.