Nicole Eggers is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Tennessee- Knoxville. Her ¿eld of research is the modern history of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Jessica Lynne Pearson is Assistant Professor of History at Macalester College. She is the author of The Colonial Politics of Global Health: France and the United Nations in Postwar Africa (2018).

Aurora Almada e Santos is Researcher at the Institute of Contemporary History of NOVA University of Lisbon. She is the author of A Organização das Nações Unidas e a Questão Colonial Portuguesa, 1960-1974 (2017).

The authors in this book explore the early history of the United Nations in order to increase our understanding of both the achievements and the limits of international support for the independence of colonized peoples.

Introduction; Part I: The Politics of Oversight; 1. National Prerogatives versus International Supervision: Britain's Evolving Policy toward the Campaign for Equivalency of United Nations' Handling of Dependent Territories, 1945-1963; 2. A Challenge to the System: The South West African Question and the United Nations Trusteeship Council; 3. The United Nations, the Italian Decolonization and the 1949 Bevin-Sforza Plan: A Victory for Neo-colonialism?; Part II: Decolonizing Global Governance?; 4. The United Nations between 'Old Boys Club' and a Changing World Order: The South African-Indian Dispute at the United Nations, 1945-1955; 5. 'A Crisis of Confidence': The Postcolonial Moment and the Diplomacy of Decolonization at the United Nations, ca. 1961; 6. Haiti, the United Nations, and Decolonization in the Congo; Part III: Unraveling Empire; 7. The Trust Territory of Somaliland, 1950-1960: Trusteeship or Colony?; 8. The United Nations and Information Gathering on Portuguese Colonies, 1961-1962; 9. The United Nations and West Papuan Self-Determination: Lingering Conceptions of 'Civilization' in the Decolonization Process