This is a very original work on a neglected topic. Compared with the Colonial Office, which made policy and advised cabinet ministers, the work of the Crown Agents for the Colonies was mundane and politically unimportant. Historians, therefore, have shied away from them in favor of following the endeavors of more colorful imperial administrators at home and abroad. To redress the balance and assess the role of the agents in colonial development, David Sunderland has exploited the rich array of primary sources in the Crown Agents’ Archives at Sutton; the National Archives at Kew; various business archives, such as the Bank of England, the National Westminster Bank, Barings, and Rothschilds; as well as numerous collections of private papers and some colonial records in South Africa and Australia.

The book, which is based on an Oxford D. Phil. thesis, has three parts. The biggest section consists of detailed, and, it must be said, somewhat repetitive, analyses of the main categories of agency work. The list is surprisingly long. They had a monopoly of the supply to the colonies of nonlocally manufactures public sector stores. They organized the provision of external finances, managed colonies’ investments in the United Kingdom, paid pensions and some salaries, and arranged loans, allowances, and coinages. They supervised infrastructure building—notably railways and harbors. They hired transport for colonial troops and indentured labor. Whereas the other big spenders—the Admiralty, the War Office, and India Office—arranged for such services in-house, the Colonial Office, with its multiplicity of dependencies, many very small, found it convenient to rely on the services of a body that was commercially and financially independent, funded by commissions and fees charged for its services.

The second aspect of the book is as a work of reference—fulfilled by very detailed and useful appendixes. There are personnel lists of earlier colonial agents before 1833 and the Crown Agents’ senior staff, 1880–1914. There is an organizational diagram of the office. The agents’ principals are listed—seventy-nine colonial administrations, two African military forces, two railways, and a harbor board. The salary scales of the agents are compared with those of the Colonial Office. The agents’ links with the city are listed. The progress and prices of African railway construction are compared with German and French colonial equivalents. Financial services—loan issues and conversions, bank advances, and coinage issues—are listed.

But the most original and stimulating part of the book is the carefully argued conceptual framework that is pursued throughout. Based on “principal-agent theory,” it embraces the role of institutional and individual self-interest, institutional and personal moral hazard, the building of trust relationships, and the workings of a complex network of principal-agent associations.

For all their formal independence, the Crown Agents had to work for over seventy colonial governments within the framework of the Colonial Office's overall policies and the Treasury's surveillance of the public purse. While securing fairly priced goods and services for colonies, the agents also needed to ensure smooth relations with suppliers, manufacturers, shippers, and financial institutions. Pursuing the interests of all these, and their own self-interest for institutional survival, presented an intricate juggling act. To minimize personal moral hazard, the agents recruited from a narrow social class, largely using personal contacts and family connections. Salaries and life insurance higher than normal civil service rates were offered. Reliance was placed on a few large suppliers and banks. A table of the Crown Agents’ family and social relationships, especially the family, service, and business connections of Sir Montague Ommaney, a former Royal Engineers officer, who served with the Crown Agents, 1877–1900, and then became Permanent Undersecretary in the Colonial Office, 1900–1907, is an eye-opener.

The author concludes that until the 1890s, when pressure for developing the “undeveloped estates” built up, the interests of agents, Colonial Office, and colonies usually coincided, and the agency gained a reputation for supplying high quality, though expensive, services. Thereafter, agency charges to ensure expansion came to be seen as overpriced, while the service was often substandard. Many railway contracts in West Africa overran budgets and timing and ended up producing rickety lines that failed to pay.

Colonial and supplier complaints led to enquiries in 1901 and 1908 and to reforms that included recruiting through the civil service exam system, lower remuneration, and a reduction of fees charged. Yet the agents succeeded in providing goods and capital more efficiently than colonies could provide for themselves. “Although the colonies paid high prices for public sector goods, they were rarely unsuitable or broke down and colonies were spared the need and opportunity cost of finding replacements” (288). Railway projects, questionable to accountants, made considerable contributions to later economic growth even though they appeared extravagant and uneconomic. If the Crown Agents had not existed, it is suggested that the Crown colonies would have enjoyed slower growth.

The most surprising element that emerges is that after the British Empire had been dismantled institutional self-interest was strong enough to ensure the agency's survival. In 1980 it became a statutory corporation and continued to provide financial and other services to development agencies fulfilling functions not unlike those of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. As in the nineteenth century, it still helps channel development funds to third world countries.