Beyond Empire looks at three decades of British colonial administration to assess the capacity of the independent governments of Africa to achieve independence. A wealth of archival material and a unique review of British press over those decades brings to life the dynamic and the tension of the process of decolonisation. Addressing a wide range of issues, from education, constitutional change and economic relations, Beyond Empire sheds new light on aspects of colonial history at the country level, with the focus on the African administrations themselves as agents in the decolonisation process.

"So we left without glory but without disaster" - Sir Humphrey Trevelyan, the last High Commissioner of the Federation of South Arabia

In 1967, 139 years after their arrival in Aden, the British withdrew from the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. Their departure was abrupt, messy and controversial. Using important, previously unpublished material and original interviews with a range of individuals, both British and Yemeni, who lived through this defining period of colonial history, Without Glory in Arabia tells the story of the final few years of British rule in Aden and the neighboring Eastern and Western Aden Protectorates. While some view British rule, on the whole, as beneficial to the local population, others insist that very little was achieved. Worse, Britain did not provide a structure of government constitution which met the conflicting needs of Aden and the Protectorate. This illuminating book brilliantly sets the "scuttle" - as the episode came to be known - in context with a thorough re-examination of the background against which the events of the 1960s unfolded in this obscure backwater of the British Empire.