This book is the first major attempt to examine the cultural
manifestations of the demise of imperialism as a social and political
ideology in post-war Britain. Far from being a matter of indifference or
resigned acceptance as is often suggested, the fall of the British
Empire came as a profound shock to the British national imagination, and
resonated widely in British popular culture. The sheer range of subjects
discussed, from the satire boom of the 1960s to the worlds of sport and
the arts, demonstrates how profoundly decolonisation was absorbed into
the popular consciousness. Offers an extremely novel and provocative
interpretation of post-war British cultural history, and opens up a
whole new field of enquiry in the history of decolonisation.