The year 1945 saw the end of the greatest and most devastating conflict mankind has ever known. World War II was waged as a total war: a global conflict fought without restraints. In the upshot, the human and economic costs of almost six years of fighting were staggering: the war was believed to have cost over US$2 trillion; an estimated 50 million people (roughly 35 million civilians and 15 million soldiers) were killed; cities and industries completely demolished and laid waste; and millions of people uprooted by massive population movements.

The changes that came in the wake of the war were as dramatic. The European continent underwent a major transformation in the aftermath of the war. The end of war in Europe was quickly followed by the Cold War, which in very profound ways provided the framework of the economic and political reconstruction following the dismantling of the German New Order. The Cold War was to influence international politics for more than forty years.

The end of the war triggered the beginning of the end of the European empires in Asia and Africa. Political independence and the departure of the erstwhile colonial powers marked for the new sovereign states of Asia the first successful stage of nationalism. What followed were the more formidable tasks of constructing the post-colonial state and meeting the related challenges of economic and social development. In many ways, the post-war history of the new states of Asia were chronicles of the strategies and methods adopted by these new states to cope with the problems they had inherited from their individual colonial past and wartime experiences. For many individuals and states across Asia, “deeply layered” memories of the war continue to dwell in their current consciousness. Some are orchestrated, but many are spontaneous and even cathartic.