For countless people around the world, World War II was a transformative experience. The Allies had claimed to fight for democracy, egalitarianism, and individual liberty, values that seemed to many in colonized Asia and Africa to be incompatible with the continuance of European imperial rule. Colonial troops had fought and died in the war, and colonial peoples had provided labor and resources. With the war over, and much of Europe in ruins, in colony after colony independence movements sprang up to claim the autonomy that many felt they had earned. The war also changed the lives and outlook of women in Europe and the United States. During the war, millions of women had entered the workforce, often taking jobs in industries that had previously been reserved for men. The experience was a key factor in the emergence of a resurgent women’s rights movement in the decades after the war, a movement whose participants saw the right to vote as only one small step toward true equality. As you read these excerpts from the writings of Frantz Fanon and Simone de Beauvoir, ask yourself how the war might have shaped their perspectives. What role did the war play in sparking movements for greater equality and social justice in the decades following 1945?