The era of decolonization is sixty years old. It began in 1947, when India and Pakistan won their independence from Britain, and it continued until 1974, when the Portuguese Empire collapsed. In between, African and Asian nations emerged from the long night of colonial rule, and in Latin America new regimes broke out of the grip of oligarchies.

This year Ghana celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of its independence, the first sub-Saharan African nation to free itself of its colonizers. Kwame Nkrumah, a few minutes after his country's birth, offered this vision for its future: "We are going to see that we create our own African personality and identity. We again rededicate ourselves in the struggle to emancipate other countries in Africa. Our independence is meaningless unless it is linked to the total liberation of the African continent." Ghana's independence was significant, but alone it was vulnerable. Nkrumah surveyed the African continent and the rest of the "darker nations," whose solidarity would be essential.

These new nations did not want only to rid themselves of their colonial masters. Crucially, they also articulated a vision for a new global dispensation. Twenty-nine new nations and movements had gathered together at Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955 to lay out how they wished to reshape the world. "Irresistible forces have swept the two continents," said Indonesia's Sukarno. "There are new conditions, new concepts, new problems, new ideals abroad in the world."

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