The First Doors

CHAPTER 2 · 1951–1956 · The Decolonization of Africa, 1945–1994

The first cracks run along the Mediterranean. Libya goes first, in 1951 — not through revolt but through the young United Nations, which cannot agree who should hold the ex-Italian colony and so grants it independence by vote. Then Egypt: in 1952 Nasser’s Free Officers depose the king, and in 1956 Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal — the artery of European trade and oil. Britain, France and Israel invade to take it back (trace the arrows in, then out). And are humiliated: President Eisenhower, blindsided and unwilling to see the West split, forces his own allies to withdraw with a threatened r

The turn: Suez, November 1956.

This chapter is one scene of an interactive atlas: the map repaints as the dates advance, campaigns draw themselves, and every chapter argues its causes and consequences — then a field exam asks you to prove it on the map.