After the Second World War a new era began: European colonial empires declined and colonies in Asia and Africa became independent. The War played a big part in the communist revolution in China. The emergence of the US and the USSR as super powers divided the world into two antagonistic blocs, and the Cold War triggered conflicts in Korea, Cuba, Vietnam and West Asia. The Cold War period ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall.
1. China before the Revolution
- The Manchus had ruled China since about 1650; administration was in the hands of scholar-officials called mandarins, drawn from the landed gentry.
- The Taiping Rebellion (1850–64) was a major peasant rebellion. Defeat in the opium wars forced China to open its ports to western powers.
- In 1898 the young Emperor began the Hundred Days of Reform, but the Dowager-Empress Tzu Hsi imprisoned him and reversed the reforms.