The Cambridge Economic History of Australia follows the basic format of its predecessors as country economic histories. There are 25 chapters with 30 authors, 28 currently in Australia. As befits the current approach in economic history there are 42 tables, 69 figures, and 3 maps, and a list of up-to-date references with about 1,200 entries. The chapter authors and co-authors are all leading scholars of Australia, with a mix of economic historians, economists, and historians. And, as with the earlier Cambridge country economic histories, the writing and editing is generally first-class, and the volume should have a long shelf-life for students of Australian history.

Basically, after five introductory chapters, the book is organized chronologically: (1) the economic expansion of the colonies; (2) a national economy, and (3) building the modern economy. The initial chapters include a survey of Australian economic growth (by Jakob B. Madsen) and two chapters (one by William Coleman and one by Christopher Lloyd) dealing with the historiography and development of the study of economic history in Australia, presenting the important themes and the shifting political interpretations of the nature of Australian development. The next two chapters deal with the specifics of two of the populations that settled the continent. The first (by Boyd Hunter) discusses the original settlers, the Aborigines, and offers a reinterpretation of their role in Australian economic history, discussing and analyzing Noel Butlin's upward revision of the pre-contact aboriginal population and as well as the estimated impact of smallpox. It also presents an important reinterpretation of Aboriginal economic and ecological practices, demonstrating a more technologically successful and adaptable set of economic adjustments than has generally been argued for. The chapter on “The Convict Economy” (by David Meredith and Deborah Oxley), draws on their recent publications and their new database, describing the characteristics of “more than 87,000 individuals, …over half of all those transported, weighting the data to reconstruct the entire convict population,” of about 163,000 (p. 104). They argue that “Australia is not the only country with a history of dispossession, indigenous depletion, and coercion, but it is the only one ever founded on a penal practice.” It was not the best of all possible worlds, but it worked and “exceeded expectations” (p. 121).

The three chronologically based sections deal with material in a more familiar economic manner, with chapters based on outputs and inputs, generally with a reasonable amount of quantitative data. Part 3 deals with the period of the Economic Expansion of the Colonies. It has 6 chapters. One is on “Technological Change” (by Gary B. Magee), who argues “that the supply of technological ideas in Australia embraced all sectors and industries” (p. 131). Industrialization based on natural resources (by David Greasley), describes the importance of pastorilism, particularly the importance of wool as the key export. “Labour, skills and migration” (by Andrew Seltzer), points to the importance of subsidies to attract free migration from Europe to Australia. “Colonial Enterprise” (by Simon Ville) describes various problems of entrepreneurship and the emergence of large corporations. The chapter on government provided infrastructure and the role of “colonial socialism” (by Henry Ergas and Jonathan Pincus), points out the importance of the state in providing railroads and other infrastructure, as well as in determining land distribution. Urbanization is discussed by Lionel Frost, who notes the relatively large share of urban population in Australia. All present a basically positive picture of Australian success. The search for an export commodity was solved by the growth of wool production and also some mining commodities, while the desire for labor was met, even after the end of penal labor imports, by the growth of free labor migration, mainly from the British Isles.

The six chapters studying “A National Economy” also follows familiar economic lines. They include chapters on “Capital Markets” (by Rodney Maddock), who discusses trends to 1950, including the collapses of the 1840s and the 1890s; Manufacturing (by Diane Hutchinson) and “Big Business and Foreign Firms” (by David T. Merrett), who arguing for the role of big business and industrialization in economic growth, but also points to the nature of the deindustrialization after the 1960s; Government Policy (by John K. Wilson) describes the impact of Federation in 1901, the role of tariffs and other taxes, and the implementation of “White Australia,” in covering the years to the post-WWII period. “The Labour Market” (by Tim Hatton and Glenn Withers) includes an analysis of the growth of child labor and the emerging role of labor unions. The survey of the growth of the service economy (by Monica Keneley) points to the many key contributions of this expanding sector. As before, a favorable depiction of the Australian economic performance is presented. Australia is considered to be among the world's richest nations for most of this period, even with the unfavorable performance in the depression of the 1890s.

The third chronological section, “Building the Modern Economy,” has only three chapters, each primarily dealing with issues of economic policy. It includes chapters on “Microeconomic Reform” (by Jeff Borland), Post-WWI macroeconomic policy (by Michael Keating), and a broad chapter on “The Reorientation of Trade, Investment, and Migration” (by Richard Pomfret).

The concluding four chapters include a “statistical narrative” (by Matthew Butlin, Robert Dixon, and Peter Lloyd). They also contribute a statistical appendix containing several selected data series. There are also broad survey chapters on past, present, and future patterns of “Wealth and Welfare” (by Martin P. Shanahan), on the nature of property rights regimes, their changes, and their effects on the environment (by Edwyna Harris), and, as a complement to an earlier chapter, a “21st Century Perspective” on the indigenous economy (by Jon Altman and Nicholas Biddle).

As in the other Cambridge economic histories, this volume gives a great deal of information about economic development. The chapters do a fine job in placing Australia in some comparative perspective with other nations. Given the intent to provide a detailed survey of happenings, there seem relatively few surprises presented. There have been several recent shorter one-volume economic histories of Australia, but clearly if you want to choose a single volume, with the choice independent of price considerations, this will be by far the most useful.