On October 2nd, the South African website Politics Web published an extraordinary historical document, a 26-page memorandum from then-British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Loyd detailing the issues that he thought would affect British policy in Africa over the next decade. The memo gives a sense of just how much was at stake for a British empire in its twilight, an Africa on the verge of independence, and a wider world riven by Cold War-era rivalries. It’s a long and engrossing time warp (would the Southern British Cameroons fall into Ghana’s sphere of influence?), a return to a world where colonialism in its actual, classical sense — as well as Nasserism and Marxism in their actual, classical senses — were still a factor in international politics. More importantly, it was an attempt to think through “what kind of world would follow empire,” according to Frederick Cooper, a New York University professor and reigning expert on the imperial history of Africa.

Read Here – The Atlantic