A sweeping, vivid history capturing the sudden end of Britain’s empire and the moment when America became a world superpower.

Britain fought and sacrificed on a worldwide scale to defeat Hitler and his allies—and won. Yet less than three years after victory, the British Empire effectively ended, and the age of America as world superpower dawned. Peter Clarke’s book is the first to analyze the abrupt transition from Rule Britannia to Pax Americana. His swiftly paced narrative offers vivid portraits of pivotal figures like Churchill, Gandhi, Truman, and Stalin. The Last Thousand Days of the British Empire shows how events that followed the war reshaped the world as much as the conflict itself.