British economic development in South East Asia, 1880–1939 is an impressive, three-volume set of primary sources, covering the countries that are now Brunei, Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), Singapore and Thailand (Siam). The eighty selected documents deal with a broad range of issues related to British economic policies and their impact during the late colonial period. These texts are organised into broad thematic groups. With its focus solely on agriculture, Volume One includes sources on the mainstays of the export-oriented economies such as rice, rubber and timber but also finds room for some exploring of the roles of fishing and hunting. Volume Two, meanwhile, showcases documents related to mining (such as that of tin, gold and coal), trade (local, intra-regional and international), and manufacturing and processing industries (including textiles, canned pineapples and coconut oil). Lastly, Volume Three broadens the collection's scope beyond economic issues to explore what its subtitle calls ‘the building blocks of development’. The sources therein cover governance, transport and communications infrastructure (including railways, shipping and postal services), human capital (specifically, the healthcare, sanitation and housing of migrant populations), and, finally, financial capital (banking, cooperative societies and currency).

The collection starts with a General Introduction in which David Sunderland outlines British economic goals in the region and how they sought to achieve them. This essay is heavily descriptive and provides the necessary context for appreciating the sources. Each of the thematic sections is also prefaced by a short introduction that expands upon the related information in the General Introduction. In all of these essays, Sunderland shows a high level of familiarity with the relevant historiography. However, he does not really engage with any of the debates concerning the nature and effects of British economic policy; seeming to prefer to let the sources speak for themselves. These are a mixture of publications and archival records drawn from libraries across the United Kingdom, especially the British Library in London, the National Archives in Kew and the British Library of Political and Economic Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). They range from extensive sets of statistics on, for example, the imports and exports of the Straits Settlements (Singapore, Penang and Malacca) to detailed discussions of mining in British Malaya and the indigenous cotton industry in British Burma. Each document has a brief introduction in which Sunderland provides information about the author (where known), summarises the contents and, occasionally, suggests other relevant texts that are not reproduced in the collection. Archaic, jargonistic or non-English words and phrases in the texts have explanatory notes at the end of each volume. Unfortunately, there are some inconsistencies and omissions here, with some Malay terms, for instance, carrying no explanation. Locating documents on a particular topic or country is straightforward thanks to the extensive index in Volume Three. Moreover, each of the thematic introductions also cross-references documents pertinent to that theme that can be found in other sections and volumes.

Little indication is given to how the sources were selected, with Sunderland merely noting that they were chosen ‘for balance and for their relative scarcity in modern print form’ and in the belief they would ‘be of interest to most scholars or researchers’ (Vol. 1: p. lvii). Questions might be raised as to how successfully the collection meets these criteria, however. Some documents, such as that describing the Malayan railway network and the different types of locomotives used on it, might be too technical for all but the dedicated specialist. A more serious weakness, though, is the uneven coverage given to different countries in the region, with the majority of the documents focusing on Malaya (present-day Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore). In contrast, there are just eleven that concern Burma and, despite being the world's leading rice exporter in the early twentieth century, only one on its rice industry (compared to three on that in Malaya). This concentration on Malaya is also apparent in the various introductory essays, but nowhere is it explained or justified. Another problem is that almost all the sources are written from a Western perspective. Indeed, only a government memorandum summarising some articles from a Tamil-language newspaper on the living conditions of Indian labourers in Malaya comes close to representing the views of the colonised.

Overall, this sourcebook is well organised and presented. Its thematic breadth and depth mean that all economic and social historians of British imperialism in Southeast Asia should find something of interest within, though it will be most useful for those who focus on Malaysia and Singapore.