A great theme: the effect of the loss of Empire on the internal politics of the major imperial powers. Kahler examines the British and French parties of left and right and the leverage that the colons and their analogues had in their respective metropolises. A valuable study that is marginally bolstered and seriously marred by dependence on-or efforts toward-overly elaborate theoretical models. Odd, too, that attention to these models leads Kahler to compress his own sense of the poignant human side of what he himself calls a great drame.