A survey of the Crown Agents during a turbulent and eventful period. Britain's Crown Agents' Office is a unique development agency. Until the early 1960s, its clients were colonial governments, and, thereafter, the administrations of dependencies and newly independent countries. As well as purchasing a large proportion of its customers' imports, it provided them with finance and managed their investments. It was thus one of the largest buyers of goods in the UK, and, after, the Bank of England, the country's biggest financial institution. This book, the sequel to the author's 'Managing the British Empire: The Crown Agents, 1833 -1914' (Boydell, 2004), examines the Agents' various development roles, including the disastrous venture into secondary banking in 1967 which collapsed in 1974, then the largest bankruptcy in British financial history. The book contributes to a number of current debates in development studies, adds to our understanding of the London financial market and the competitiveness of British industry, and shows how present day aid agencies can learn much from the arrangements of the past.

An eye-opening investigation of a unique early hybrid of the financial and public sectors that, by Sunderland's measure, was the main force in the unfolding of colonial development. ...All this is explained with meticulous care and nuance and a wealth of difficult archival materials. This is unquestionably sound scholarship.'

Source: Twentieth Century British History

An important contribution to our understanding of colonial policy.'

Source: Asian Affairs

Deals with some of the most important [.] questions of British imperial history: the costs and benefits of British colonialism for the colonies and for the domestic British economy. [.] A fine study.'

Source: International History Review