Handover: Local Units through the End of Empire

When Harold Macmillan became prime minister early in 1957 on the back of the hugely damaging, epoch-defining Suez crisis, he immediately asked for an “audit of empire,” a “profit and loss account” for each colonial territory. While Macmillan was keen to ascertain what Britain would likely “gain or lose” by each territory’s “departure” (financially but also politically and strategically), it was largely unimaginable that over the next seven years of Conservative government, a dozen countries would secure independence from the British Empire. What’s more, these celebrations would be replicated in a further dozen areas by the end of Harold Wilson’s