The End of the British Empire - Research Proposal Example

A Research Essay Proposal for HIST 101: “The End of the British Empire” While there are numerous interesting topics to choose from for this essay, Ihave chosen to study the end of British Empire. I have always been fascinated with Great Britain and am intrigued to learn just how much influence they garnered in the world at one time. In fact, it was not that long ago, as I understand it, that the British had overseas possessions and trading posts scattered throughout the globe. It will be interesting to discover, then, what led to the end of the Empire, as we know it.

To do this, I will need to first look at the history of the British Empire, the state of the world at the time it began to decline, and what exactly occurred to cause the United Kingdom to relinquish most of its overseas possessions. In anticipation of writing this paper, I have located a number of secondary sources that are certainly worthy of study when considering this topic. The sources that I uncovered are a combination of historical overviews, coupled with a synopsis of opinions from scholars that have, themselves, attempted to better understand what led to the demise of the British Empire.

All of these resources are available electronically from the library. My preliminary list of sources include: Bernard Porter, “Cutting the British Empire Down to Size,” History Today 62 (2012), p. 22G. Glazebrook, “British Empire Migration,” Pacific Affairs 7 (1934), pp. 437 – 439.H.V. Bowen, “The British Empire,” History, 79 (1994), pp. 263-266.Ronald Hyam, “Understanding the British Empire,” History Today 46 (2011),pp. 135-136.Simon J. Potter, “The British Empire,” Historian 81 (2004), p. 32.In addition to these sources, I have located the following two sources that I will need to borrow via an interlibrary loan.

Those sources are:Nicholas Canny, The Origins of Empire, The Oxford History of the British Volume 1 (Oxford University Press, 1998).P.L. Pham, Ending ‘East of Suez’: The British Decision to Withdraw from Malaysia and Singapore, 1964-1968 (Oxford University press, 2010).