Contending With Nationalism and Communism provides a lucid, concise analysis of the development of British policy in South -East Asia in the twenty years following the defeat of Japan. The principal themes concern nationalism and communism and how Britain worked to achieve accommodation with nationalist movements while containing communist challenges. It is based on archival and published sources. This is the first study to cover British policy from the final stages of the Pacific War to the culmination of confrontation with Indonesia and escalation in Vietnam in 1965. British ministers and officials are seen as pragmatic and realistic, illustrated in the decisions to grant independence to Burma and Malaya, to support SEATO as a defensive concept, to avoid provoking Communist China, to encourage American involvement while discouraging dangerous American initiatives. The fundamental theme is is one of British assertiveness, extending to the close of the Geneva Conference in 1954, and then of gradual British withdrawal while American power expanded rapidly.