Commonwealth History

This paper discusses the extent to which Cyprus' Commonwealth membership has remained relevant following the country's accession to the EU in 2004. It is argued that, despite the predominant role of Cyprus' EU membership, the importance of the Commonwealth for the promotion of the country's political agenda and international cooperation has not diminished. There has been a steady Cypriot participation at high-level Commonwealth meetings post-EU accession. However, the importance of the Commonwealth to the everyday life of Cypriot citizens remains marginal, especially when compared to EU membership. The decision of the UK to exit the Union could precipitate an increased interest on the part of Cyprus in its Commonwealth membership, that could , eventually, even act as a bridge that might help establish a partnership cooperation mechanism between the EU and the Commonwealth.

The Reverend Dr. Michael Screech, BA, DLitt, FBA, FRSL, was an Emeritus Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford and Honorary Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. In 1992, he was honoured as a Chevalier in the French Legion of Honour in recognition of his literary works, and his translation of Montaigne’s Essays has been widely recognized. He was born on May 2. 1926 in Plymouth, England, and died on
June 1, 2018, aged 92.

The British Empire reached its greatest extent after the First World War, by which time it covered one quarter of the earth’s surface and governed a similar proportion of the world’s population.  Yet between 1947 and 1964, Britain granted independence to most of its colonies.  Unlike other empires in history – such as the Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, or Habsburg – the collapse of the British Empire was remarkably rapid.  This article outlines the chronology of British decolonization and highlights the historical debate over its causes.  It should be noted that historians disagree on the relative importance of the metropolitan (domestic British), colonial (nationalist), and international causes of British decolonization.

The Yoruba people of West Africa take great pride in our names: spilling over with riches, they are exalted with majesty and by the ties of ancestry. Oladimeji, Obayomi, Iyabo. Through our names we acquire divinity.
Omilara means “the family are like water” so it is no wonder that Omilara should be the spiritual child of the Da Costa family; the waking dreamer, the seer, since childhood, of the “Daddy people” That it should be Lara’s eyes that come to “rest on a woman whose fathomless gaze unravel such love in (her) she feels faint with it…” This woman is Zenobia – her paternal grandmother who speaks to her from eternity and takes her on a journey “into memory” so that damp musky earth, saccharine and vanilla scents, reach Lara from the Brazilian plantation on which her ancestor, Tolulope, toils as a slave, and on which she is raped by its owner.

2012. Uganda is celebrating 50 years since independence in 1962. In 1998 when I started on this book project, I found out that the majority of Ugandan did not comprehend their national anthem. In most of the education institutions where it is sang the pupils don't know the exact wording or meaning of this anthem. No wonder, nation building has been such a big hurdle to overcome. When for the first time on October 8th 2000 this anthem was sang in Lusoga there was great acclamation to the choir for making "the common prayer of our nation understandable to me fort the first time" as exclaimed by a 60 year old at the ceremonies. That is why I think this book will help in our celebrations and nation building.

Unlike other empires in history – such as the Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, or Habsburg – the collapse of the British Empire was remarkably rapid. This was especially true of the British Empire in Africa, which was largely dismantled in the years 1957-1965. Historians continue to disagree on the primacy of metropolitan, colonial and international causes of British decolonization in Africa. This article will argue that colonial nationalism and an increasingly hostile international environment contributed to the timing of independence in British Africa, but these influences must also be understood against a background of changing metropolitan circumstances and the deliberate calculations of British policy-makers. This causal interlock will be demonstrated in relation to several episodes of British decolonization between 1957 and 1965, including the Gold Coast in West Africa, the East African territories of Tanganyika, Uganda, and Kenya, and the collapse of the Central African Federation.

"On November 11, 1965 the colony of Southern Rhodesia unilaterally and illegally declared itself independent from Britain, the first and only time that this had happened since the American Declaration of Independence in 1776. After fifteen years of international ostracism, economic sanctions, and civil war Rhodesia finally walked the path to legal independence as the state of Zimbabwe in 1980. Interdisciplinary in its scope and international in its coverage, this book analyzes the weaknesses in Britain's Rhodesian policy in the 1960s and the strains that Rhodesia's UDI imposed on Britain's relations with the Commonwealth, the United States and the United Nations.

Advance praise for Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence: An International History

“Carl Peter Watts has written a comprehensive and definitive history of Rhodesia’s path of rebellion. His use of material from several archives has resulted in new knowledge and new nuances of understanding that transform our views of what happened in the last white colony of Africa.”—Stephen Chan, Professor of International Relations, School of Oriental and African Studies

“Carl Peter Watts has written a remarkably wide-ranging and lively analysis of the international repercussions of Rhodesia’s unilateral declaration of independence in the mid-1960s. Drawing on archives from a number of countries and applying international relations theories as well as a sound historical grasp, he questions a number of assumptions about the crisis, arguing that UDI could have been avoided and that, once it took place, the British government could have ended it by using military force.”—John Young, Professor of International History, University of Nottingham

“By placing the Rhodesian crisis in a genuinely international perspective, Carl Peter Watts offers important new insights into one of the most intractable problems thrown up by the process of decolonization. This rigorously researched and thought-provoking study should be essential reading for anyone seeking to understand why the issue proved so difficult to resolve.”—Philip Murphy, Professor and Director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London"

In the historiography of British imperialism, the role of the 'man on the spot' has been identified as an important impulse to the imperial project, and as a key instigator of decision making. 2 In an age of slow communication, he could 'influence events according to his own designs, unrestrained by the wishes of the home government'. 3 Despite the remarkable acceleration of communications technology by the mid 20 th century, equal attention should be directed to assessing the contribution of 'the man on the spot' in the final unravelling of empire. Structural forces alone cannot explain a particular colony's path to independence. The role of end-of-empire diplomacy meant a Governor could make a marked contribution to the process and tone of political transition through a combination of political realism, individual quirks, and personal charm which proved a vital adjunct to big decisions made in Whitehall on the basis of geo-political imperatives. Old fashioned diplomacy and diplomats therefore should not be airbrushed from history as key individuals navigated the rocky terrain of decolonisation. So historians have assessed the particular contribution of Lord Mountbatten as last Viceroy of India, and his relationship with Jawaharlal Nehru; similarly, the personal rapport between Sir Charles Arden-Clarke and

This paper draws on a variety of primary sources to investigate the various economic, political or sentimental perceptions of the Greek Cypriot political and economic elites over the prospective accession of the Republic of Cyprus to the Commonwealth. The debate was triggered at the onset of the Transitional Period (February 1959-August 1960)-when Cyprus evolved from a colonial possession to an independent state-and extended until the nascent republic joined the international organisation in 1961. By explaining these goals and concerns, this study contributes to the political history of Cyprus and benefits scholarly knowledge on the wider history of the Commonwealth.

The paper aims at analyzing the Fifth Monarchists movement in the 17th century, placing a particular focus on the period 1649-1661, during which the sect was at its most influential. The work puts under scrutiny the academic, passively theocratic and actively theocratic millennialism, beginning with the interpretation of the early millennialism’s influence on the sectarians. The Fifth Monarchists movement represents above all an attempt to establish the kingdom of heaven on earth, with Jesus Christ as its rightful king, ruling with his saints, recruited from a handful of those deeply devout who had been annunciating the millennium before its arrival. Former four wicked monarchies (Assyrian, Persian, Greek and Roman) had to fall. The Fifth Monarchists refer to the biblical tradition of the Book of Daniel (particularly chapter 7) and the Book of Revelation (particularly chapter 20), as well as to the academic works of such millenarists as Joseph Mede and Johann Heinrich Alsted. The sect can be distinguished from other chiliasts by its rich socio-economic and political programme that it was hoping to put into force to accelerate the arrival of the Fifth Monarchy. Towards the faithful, who came mostly from some of the poorest families in London and provinces, they promised a thousand-year-old land of joy, prosperity and happiness, where all men would be equal (except for the Saints, ruling alongside Jesus Christ, seen as a new form of aristocracy). Moreover, it was intended by them to thoroughly reform the law and to base it on the Sacred Scripture, which was supposed to ruin the corrupted lawyers. Furthermore, one of the major aims of the sect was to abolish tithes, and subsequently, taxes in general.

Fifth Monarchy Men owe their origins to the parliamentary army, in which the millenaristic ministers were involved, influencing the views of the Independents and the Baptists out of which the future chiliasts were mainly recruited. The execution of the king raised hopes for the imminent collapse of the fourth carnal monarchy and the coming of the millennium. The establishment of the Barebone’s Parliament was seen as a chance to implement the programme, but its failure forced the group to move to the permanent opposition. The unsuccessful uprising of Thomas Venner put an end to the importance of the Fifth Monarchy Men – during the Restoration they were seen as nothing more than a sect of minor significance.

The South African invasion of German South West Africa (GSWA) in September 1914 was specifically aimed at securing several strategic British war objectives. The invasion was the first time that the Union Defence Force (UDF) was deployed operationally in the event of war. The South African defence planners envisaged a limited military offensive in GSWA that would secure their strategic objectives in the least possible time. The outbreak of the Afrikaner Rebellion within South Africa, coupled with the harsh geography and climate of GSWA, dragged the conquest of the German colony well into 1915.

Armando Marques Guedes -Da desregulação ao recentramento no Atlântico sul, e a construção da Manuel Farto -A economia cosmopolita global, o euro e a economia portuguesa Maria do Céu Pinto -Portugal: a participação em missões de paz como factor de credibilização externa (66)(67)(68)(69)(70)(71)(72)(73)(74)(75)(76)(77)(78) Soraya Nour Sckell -Le droit international humanitaire: la controverse construction historique d 'une morale universelle (79-96) Brígida Rocha Brito -As estratégias das organizações portuguesas da sociedade civil no domínio ambiental Luís Alves de Fraga -Quando um diplomata fez política por causa da guerra. O caso de João Chagas (1910 (129-149) Notas e Reflexões Luís Moita -I Congresso Internacional do OBSERVARE: "As tendências internacionais e a posição de Portugal" (150-156) Fernando Leitão -Arte operacional: De Napoleão Bonaparte a John Warden (157-163) Evanthia Balla -Potências médias emergentes e ameaças à segurança mundial: os casos do Brasil e da Turquia -implicações para Portugal (164-172) René Tapia -O crime organizado globaliza o conto do vigário (173-182)

While numerous studies have examined Tanzania's political, economic and social development either side of independence, the development of its security sector and its interaction with external actors within this context is not well understood. This partly reflects case-specific methodological challenges, tackled here through multiple overseas sources, but also the relative absence of research on intelligence and security communities in the Global South more generally. Approaching this lacunae head on, this article draws on security assistance literature related to 'patron-client relations' and 'principal-agent' theory to trace the nature and impact of limited British security assistance pre-independence, before demonstrating how and why significant change characterised Tanzania's increasingly politicised and unstable security sector and its key international liaison partners post-independence. These changes would quickly end British hopes of integrating Tanzania into a 'Commonwealth security culture' of friendly post-colonial states, with Tanzania charting its own non-aligned path through a competition of Cold War patrons.

The imperial dimensions of British naval policy in the years leading up to the First World War have been overshadowed by Anglo-Germany naval rivalry, and for good reason. Germany's powerful High Seas Fleet posed a direct threat to the heart of the empire, and British naval preparations were naturally focussed on the North Sea rather than more distant waters. Most studies of British naval policy during this period, following the lead of Arthur Marder's From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, omit imperial concerns altogether, ignoring not just preparations for the defence of British interests outside European waters, but also the development of autonomous navies by Britain's self-governing Dominions. 1 Scholarship on the new Dominion navies, which might be expected to fill this gap, has been dominated instead by national and regional concerns. 2 Recent interest in the Admiralty's approach to imperial defence has been largely confined to a small school of revisionist historians whose conclusions are warped by their controversial views on the broad outlines of British naval policy in 1904-1914. According to the revisionists, British naval leaders were not so preoccupied with Germany and the naval balance in the North Sea that they neglected the threat to trade and imperial interests in distant waters, particularly that posed by the French and Russian navies. To meet this danger at a manageable cost, Admiral Sir John ('Jacky') Fisher, Britain's First Sea Lord from 1904-1910, allegedly developed secret plans to transform the navy's force structure.

This essay looks at the criminalisation in the South Asian Commonwealth, drawing upon application of human rights, also vigilant of issues beyond the law, and exploring the potential of decriminalisation. It is arranged in four parts: part 1 describes the nature and abuse of criminalisation. Part 2 gives an account of the application of human rights. Part 3 goes beyond legal issues, building upon perspectives of affected individuals and activists. Part 4 explores the potential of decriminalisation.

Nigeria’s commitment to the anti-apartheid struggle had been made absolutely clear even before it attained its independence on October 1
st, 1960. Following the Sharpe -ville massacres of March 21
st, 1960, when South African police shot and killed 72 blacks and wounded 184, there was a general consensus among all Nigerian political
parties, as well as the regional and federal governments, that decisive actions should be taken against the Pretoria regime in order to force that regime to change its abominable apartheid policy. This event marked the beginning of Nigeria’s confron-tation against white South Africa. Nigeria demanded and spearheaded the forceful expulsion/withdrawal of South Africa from the Commonwealth by mobilizing other black African countries in isolating South Africa in such a way that it would realize the absurdity of its racist policies. It is against this background that this paper
assesses Nigeria’s role in the expulsion or forceful withdrawal of South Africa from the Commonwealth of Nations.

Most discussions of Hobbes' political thought leave one with the impression that Hobbes' most important contribution to political theory is the contractual nature of his commonwealth from which the modern social contract and many discussions of contemporary political theory emerge. Adopting this perspective on Hobbes' political thought risks losing sight of the philosophy of politics he develops. This philosophy not only draws on a realist attitude toward human political motivation, but it also takes a position on the place of politics in culture, and redefines the horizons of culture to emphasize the role of religion within it, at times drawing on and echoing classical Jewish sources. In Leviathan, politics inherits the classical role of religion as the determining force of this cultural horizon. Political theology legitimizes the sovereign not only politically, but culturally. Liberal political theory has for over two centuries assumed the question of religion and politics to be settled. This article proposes that this question be reconsidered in light of liberalism's foundational philosophy.

This thesis uses evidence from British and international archives to examine the events leading up to Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) on 11 November 1965 from the perspectives of Britain, the Old Commonwealth (Canada, Australia, and New Zealand), and the United States. Two underlying themes run throughout the thesis. First, it argues that although the problem of Rhodesian independence was highly complex, a UDI was by no means inevitable. There were courses of action that were dismissed or remained under explored (especially in Britain, but also in the Old Commonwealth, and the United States), which could have been pursued further and may have prevented a UDI. Second, the thesis argues there were structural weaknesses in the machinery of government of each of the major actors, but particularly in Britain. This made the management of the Rhodesian Crisis more difficult, contributed to the likelihood of a UDI, and exacerbated tension in relations between Britain and its international partners. In stressing these themes the thesis builds upon some of the earlier literature that was critical of the Labour Government’s foreign and Commonwealth policies. Although this thesis is primarily an international history, it also makes use of theories from political science and international relations to frame certain aspects of the empirical research.

Debates about post-Westphalian forms of citizenship play a central role in contemporary political thought. I analyse a significant precursor to these debates, exploring fin de siècle conceptions of racial and imperial political membership. My argument has two main parts. First, I delineate different models of imperial citizenship: imperial-statist, institutional-imperial, racial-imperial, and isopolitan. Second, I dissect the notion of ‘isopolitan’ (or common) citizenship. Isopolity is a practice, derived from the ancient Greeks, in which independent states reciprocally grant citizenship rights to the members of other independent states, thus creating a loose form of political union. It was adapted at the turn of the twentieth century to theorise future Anglo-American relations. I examine the arguments of some prominent isopolitans, focusing on the constitutional theorist A. V. Dicey. ‘Anglo’ isopolitans challenged the isomorphic relationship between the territorial state, sovereignty and political membership. They did so through constructing a global white supremacist political vision.

בשיא כוחה שלטה בריטניה הגדולה ברבע מאוכלוסיית העולם, בכחמישית משטח היבשה של כדור הארץ ונהנתה משליטה ללא עוררין על האוקיינוסים שלה. מטרתו הכללית של הקורס היא לספק מבט פנורמי רחב על עלייתה ונפילתה של האימפריה הבריטית השנייה, ״האימפריה בה השמש לא שקעה לעולם״. נלמד על עלייתה של האימפריה ועל צמיחת כלכלה אימפריאלית כמו גם על הקשר שבין האימפריה להתגבשותה של ההגות הליברלית בבריטניה; נעסוק בהבדלים שבין קולוניאליזם לאימפריאליזם; נבחן את עלייתו של ״אימפריאליזם חדש״ לאחר מלחמת העולם הראשונה ואת תהליכי דה-קולוניזציה במחצית השנייה של המאה העשרים; נקדיש דיון לבנימין דישראלי, משה מונטיפיורי ומקומם של היהודים בסיפור העלילה האימפריאלי, כמו גם דיון שיעסוק במקומה של פלשתינה-א״י בעולם אימפריאלי; ונקנח בדיון שיעסוק ב״נוסטלגיה״ לאימפריה בתרבות הבתר-אימפריאלית. השיעור ישלב בין היסטוריה פוליטית להיסטוריה אינטלקטואלית ותרבותית ויכלול מגוון עשיר של מקורות כגון מכתבים, נאומים, יצירות מוזיקליות, ספרותיות וקולנועיות ועוד. לצד הקניית ידע היסטוריה זה, השיעור גם ידון באופנים בהם היסטוריונים ומבקרים פוסט-קולוניאלים שונים ביקשו להבחין בין תצורות שונות של השיטה הקולוניאלית, יבקש לחשוף את הסטודנטים ל״מפנה האימפריאלי״ (the Imperial turn) בהיסטוריוגרפיה בת-ימינו, ויספק טעימה מהפולמוסים בני-ימינו אודות הקשר שבין אימפריאליזם לגלובליזציה.
* הקורס מיועד לתלמידי ב״א מתקדמים בחוג להיסטוריה כללית ולתלמידי התכנית ׳דרך הרוח׳, אך הוא פתוח גם לסטודנטים משאר החוגים ההיסטוריים, כמו גם תלמידי החוג לאנגלית, החוג ללימודי מזרח אסיה ותלמידי תכנית המ״א בלימודי אירופה וגרמניה.

The British monarchy and state symbols have been much more successful in assimilating immigrants of non-British stock than is often recognised. Indeed, these immigrants have often proved to be much much attached to such symbols than settlers of British origin and they have not been a significant factor in the weakening of such attachments in these countries.

The First World War triggered a process of reform for the British Empire, opening a new phase, that was the third. After a first Atlantic Empire and a second more global and focused on Asia and India, the Great War rebuilt the pivot of the imperial world system founding it on a power block formed by the “white” Dominions or, in other words, the relationship between Britain and the main self-governing colonies of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa. Nevertheless, as in the past, India maintained a key role due to its strategic weight of «English barracks in the Oriental seas», as Lord Salisbury remarked in 1882. In this reforming process, 1917 was a fundamental step by laying the foundations for the creation of the British Commonwealth of Nations, or, according to the expression adopted in that year, the Imperial Commonwealth of autonomous nations.

During the 1960s Conservative and Labour governments hoped that the Commonwealth would continue to serve British economic and strategic interests, as the Empire had done for centuries before. However, such hopes foundered on the sharp rocks of the Rhodesian problem, which threatened to tear the Commonwealth apart. This article examines the reasons why the Commonwealth did not disintegrate during the Prime Ministers’ Meetings of 1964 and 1965 despite widespread fears that it would not survive. It argues that political divisions – especially between African Commonwealth states – allowed the Commonwealth to survive relatively unscathed.

This article uses international archival sources to examine Australian policy on the problem of Rhodesian independence during the 1960s. It demonstrates that until November 1965 the Australian government led by Sir Robert Menzies followed a finely balanced policy that was broadly supportive of Britain but also sympathetic to the Rhodesian Front. However, the Australian response to Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) revealed increasing bureaucratic conflict in Australian policy-making and exposed the limits of Australian support for Britain in dealing with the international consequences of the UDI. Analysis of Australia’s decision to not attend the Lagos Conference in January 1966 demonstrates the Menzies government’s anxiety about the implications of racial issues for Australian domestic and foreign policies. This suggests that historians should pay more attention to the significance of Africa in Australian foreign relations during the Menzies era.

Law, emerging from savagery, could know, absorb, and deracinate the savage impulses, rendering savage contents of blood and soil, violence and nobility as universal and exemplary, and setting them in enduring opposition to a savagery henceforth condemned to the local and base (Fitzpatrick 1999: 47).

This article discusses the significance for the Commonwealth of the period between Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) in 1965 and the formal end of British sovereignty in 1980. Rhodesia was one of many severe problems that confronted the Commonwealth during this period, but its response to the UDI helped to shape the contemporary Commonwealth in terms of its organisation, values, and statesmanship. This article suggests that although the independence of Zimbabwe represented a triumph for the Commonwealth, it also generated a mixed legacy because Zimbabwe and the Commonwealth have since failed to live up to the frequently-espoused rhetoric of racial justice, democracy, and human rights.

‘Commonwealth’ and ‘dominion’ are two terms often used in history. In the 20th century, however, their political use was strictly linked to the evolution of the British Empire. Since 1907, when the category of Dominion was officially born, the soon-to-be-called British Commonwealth of Nations walked through a path in which the colonial rule between the white self-governing colonies (Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa) and Great Britain created a bond looking like an alliance between equal States. Not by chance, at the end of the Second World War, the former white self-governing colonies were already enjoying full independence without fighting any war of independence against the metropolitan power. This was quite unique for an Empire embracing every corner of the world. In 1917, the Imperial War Conference, held in London during the First World War, paved the way towards the recognition of full sovereignty for the Dominions. Indeed, the British government acknowledged that the white self-governing colonies had the right to be an influential actor in handling the foreign affairs of the Empire. The Chanak crisis in 1922 showed that Britain, voluntarily or not, could not escape the fact that the Dominions already played the role of almost sovereign actors in international politics. The Balfour declaration of 1926 maintained that Britain and the white Dominions were at the same political level. As a consequence, the Statute of Westminster of 1931 gave a de facto independence to Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The British Commonwealth of Nations, thus, was eventually born. Every new nation adopted the Statute in different years, and each of them could recognize since 1931 that, in theory, they were now able to pursue their own foreign policy independently from British interests. In practice, the security of the British Empire was still interconnected. Indeed, the bond uniting the Commonwealth became apparent at the outbreak of the Second World War, when the nowindependent Dominions entered the war alongside the former Motherland. Between 1907 and 1948, the Dominion category was flexible enough to be used in other cases: the Irish Free State, for example, or India and Pakistan. However, the ‘old’ white Dominions always enjoyed a different political treatment, leading to their independence without firing any shot against the metropolitan power.

ABSTRACT
Recent reception studies show that Edmund Burke has held kaleidoscopic positions in the history of modern British political thought. However, little attention is paid to the ways in which Burke featured in the ideologies of the British Commonwealth in the early twentieth century. Addressing this gap, I focus on two staunch British Commonwealth theorists, both of whom heavily depended on aspects of Burke's thought: Reginald Coupland (1884-1952) and Alfred Zimmern (1879-1957). I show that in their distinct ways, Coupland and Zimmern applied Burke's ideas (of trust and manners, respectively) to characterize the British Commonwealth as a unique organic community with universal values. I also demonstrate that both of them contrasted such Commonwealth and Continental Europe to highlight the moral superiority of the former.

KEYWORDS
Burke; Reginald Coupland; trusteeship; Alfred Zimmern; manners; the British Commonwealth

NOTE
This is a contribution to the International Workshop "Britain as a Home of European Liberty" (Durham University, 16-17 September 2019). Participants in it include  Eugenio Biagini, Laura Forster, Georgios Giannakopoulos, Lara Green, Dina Gusejnova, Thomas Jones, Alex Middleton, Jeanne Morefield, Anne Schult, Richard Toye, Georgios Varouxakis and me.
See for details: https://www.academia.edu/40229703/Britain_as_a_Home_of_European_Liberty_in_the_19th_and_20th_centuries_Workshop_Programme?fbclid=IwAR3ot6A5bkEtNS7-4GO8crdDz2UYQIrPjlk8xU9kJIEsSCi6mL2-CrrEmpY

This paper considers the parallels and disconnections between leftist thought in Australia and India at a key moment in the interwar era, as the Comintern transitioned from its Second to its Third Period, eschewing the united front with nationalist and parliamentary parties. It does this by tracing the movements of the Australian communist Jack Ryan, who visited India in 1928 representing the Pan-Pacific Trade Union (PPTU), a Comintern organisation that sought to build solidarities between workers in the Asia Pacific region. Arriving in Bombay at a critical time when leftist organisation in India was on the rise, Ryan was trailed by government intelligence organisations that monitored his activities, letters and speeches. Although the formal purpose of his visit – to affiliate Indian Trade Unions with the PPTU – failed, Ryan’s journey to India had a substantial political impact. Coinciding with the interventions of a number of other foreign communists in India, it escalated attempts to legislate against the movement of political dissidents in the empire, by launching the Meerut Conspiracy Case. Back in Sydney, Ryan’s transnational movement gave him an international prominence that fired domestic communist jealousies, contributing to his expulsion from the Communist Party of Australia, in 1930. Finally, by highlighting the inability of Australian Trade Unions to form lasting solidarities across boundaries of race, Ryan’s politics revealed a substantial faultline in Australian leftist thought.

Introduction for Special Issue.
This special issue seeks to present original contributions exploring how the RoC has both shaped and been shaped by the Commonwealth, and at the same time to establish a framework for further research on the subject matter. The papers included cover different aspects of the relations between the RoC and the Commonwealth. A common theme of all papers is that they focus on official perceptions by the RoC and/or the Greek Cypriot majority vis-à-vis the Commonwealth, drawing on a variety of sources, including Greek-speaking ones that, due to linguistic barriers, have often been absent from discussion regarding the RoC in international literature.

The article discusses about the groups of Member-Governments constituted the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration (ICEM). The main focus is on the division between the Commonwealth group of countries and the Latin American one. Their diversified migration policies and needs, were constantly generating conflicts between them. The article points out the paternalistic attitide of Australia, towards the less-developed Latin American countries; the intra-Commonwealth group conflicts occures; as well as it finds the existence of a system of  "informal governance" in the decision-making processes of the ICEM's policies.

Between 1948 and 1962, approximately 600 million Commonwealth citizens had the right to enter the UK. This number decreased throughout the 1960s and 1970s, as a series of Acts of Parliament altered the rights and definitions of Commonwealth citizens. To date, the European Union has extended the right to over 500 million citizens and residents of member-states to enter the UK. This new trend has been met with perceptions of threat to national cultural and economic resources. Reactions to Commonwealth immigration were similarly negative. This paper examines parallels between EU immigration today and Commonwealth immigration of the past. It argues that the fears expressed, both in the literature of the 1960s and 1970s and in contemporary society, reflect a fear of persons who are seen as ‘other’ but who must, by law, be defined as fellow-citizens and afforded the attendant rights. We argue that theorists of free and freer movement must acknowledge these local concerns in order to strengthen their theory and enable a more liberal treatment of immigration policy in the UK and beyond.

The major aim of this international research project was to record and analyze the chronological development of adult education in the country members of the commonwealth. It traces the developments in the area of adult education since early 1900s to the very latest as for 1999. This project was supported by the Commonwealth of Learning; the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto; the Commonwealth Association for the Education and Training of Adults; and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Institute for Education.

The present paper aims to present the status of the military cemeteries of the First World War in Macedonia region, in the Balkans, as a sample of common cultural heritage in this very area. In the introduction, there are certain points raised concerning mainly: the historical knowledge and report on the present condition of military cemeteries (as far as spatial organization, architecture and sculpture are concerned), the status of their contemporary function, as well as the relation between these monuments and both the local communities and the greater area. In addition, the framework of a corporate planning for the launching of the cemeteries in the countries of this area is also presented along with their incorporation in the contemporary urban environment, the promotion of scenarios and actions towards the cooperation of the two countries – where the monuments are traced– in order to facilitate and methodize the visitors' transportation there. Sommario

This chapter examines what public rhetoric about the Commonwealth and the European Economic Community (EEC) reveals about the process of Britain’s turn from Empire in the ‘wind of change’ era. It considers the varying uses to which the idea of Commonwealth was put in debates about the Common Market during the period of Britain’s first application to join the EEC (1961-3). For both main political parties, the Commonwealth was a concept that progressively evolved as it was recruited into political argument. The chapter concludes that the rhetorical process did not merely expose latent views of the Commonwealth into the light of day, but rather served as a mechanism by which the ‘language-ideology’ of the Commonwealth was actually created.

Contemporary anxieties about global warming and climate change impacts have unsettled the ways in which we think about environmental politics and human history. Intense discussions have already begun over whether we need to reconsider what we understand by the term 'environmental change' and if humans have truly become a 'geophysical' force. How should we recast our understanding of the planet's varied environmental pasts in order to make sense of the Anthropocene present?  This collection of nineteen essays on forestry and environmental change in the erstwhile colonies of the British empire builds on Richard Grove's quest for achieving a 'global synthesis' as efforts toward writing environmental histories on a planetary scale.