Monarchies and decolonisation provides new perspectives on the role of European colonial monarchies, and the monarchies of Asia, in the late colonial period, during the process of decolonisation, and in its aftermath. With case studies drawn from former colonies in South and Southeast Asia, as well as Japan and Thailand, contributors examine the changes in forms of government - from colonial monarchies to those of independent states, from monarchies to republics, and from monarchies with empires to those which no longer had them - in the lead-up to the decolonisation of India and Indonesia in the 1940s down to to the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997. It shows how monarchies, with or without success, tried to accommodate the independence of former colonies, restructuring themselves for political transition, challenges from republicanism and radicalism and, in some cases, recasting themselves in the wake of the loss of overseas empires. Looking at the phenomenon of hundreds of rulers of princely states in India and sultanates in Indonesia, the white rajahs of Sarawak and such well-known figures as King Sihanouk of Cambodia and Emperor Hirohito of Japan, the book develops new transnational and comparative insights into the institution of monarchy in modern Asia. With chapters written by internationally recognised scholars from half a dozen countries, the volume will prove valuable to historians of modern Asia, of colonialism and decolonisation, and of studies in modern monarchy.
