Phil Craig tracks Allied powers' duplicitous endgame in Asian colonies

Operation Semut typified the Allied betrayal of Atlantic Charter ideals. It's a pity Mr Craig overlooks similar betrayals of the Nagas and others who served the British in the India-Burma theatre

1945: The Reckoning: War, Empire and the Struggle for a New World

by Phil Craig 

Published by Hachette

380 pages ₹899

 

Recent popular histories of World War II have focused on the war in Asia, where the post-war political trajectories of former colonial empires have been no less consequential than those in Europe. Those campaigns are an uncomfortable reminder that, whatever the evils of Nazi Germany, World War II was essentially a colonial contest, and the empires relied heavily on colonial troops to fight their good fight.

 

In 1945: The Reckoning, popular historian Phil Craig follows a track set by scholars such as