Money, Finance, and Empire, 1790-1960

by Andrew N. Porter (Editor)

Scholars have recently begun to pay renewed attention to the economics of empire, focusing in particular on the requirements of metropolitan Britain's economy and on the activities of imperial businesses. Within this broad field, financial questions, not least the subject of investment overseas or the 'export of capital', have long had a prominent place, and have been equally affected by the development of new appraoches. The consensus as to the volume and direction of Britain's overseas investments is being vigorously challenged. Technological advances have encouraged on a greatly enlarged scale the compilation and analysis of information about British investments and shareholdings abroad. The gradual easing of restrictions on business records has increased facilities for the study, especially, of imperial and colonial banking. Work on the financial policies of central governments is revealing much of interest to students of twentieth-century colonial rule and decolonization. This collection of essays brings together a selection of the latest research on these and other themes, and, for comparative purposes, includes examples of recent continental work.

196 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1985

About the author

A specialist in the history of the British Empire, Andrew Neil Porter earned his PhD at Cambridge University. After teaching at Manchester University as a lecturer, Porter moved to King’s College London in 1971, becoming professor in 1990, and Rhodes professor in 1993.