ENGLISH

Managing British Colonial and Post-Colonial Development: The Crown Agents, 1914-1974

By David Sunderland

Book information

Year
2007
ISBN
1843833018, 9781843833017
Open Library ID
OL17236255M
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
1 MB (1398063 bytes)
Pages
312\309
Topic
History
Time added
2011-06-04 13:46:07

Description

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.

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