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Covering the colonial
Empire (including West Indies, India, Singapore, West Africa and East Africa), this
book is a detailed revisionist history of the British imperial manipulations of
colonial currency systems to facilitate the rise of sterling to world supremacy
via the gold standard, and to slow its eventual decline after World War I. Official
internal correspondence is used to show that Britain typically acted against the
advice of colonial commercial interests, colonial governments, and even officials
in the Colonial Office, in order to
replace international currencies (including gold and sterling itself),
with localised silver currencies. The local currencies were backed by gold and
sterling reserves in London, under the total control of the British Treasury
and the Bank of England. In the process liquidity was provided to the London
money market, and cheap finance to the British Government.

This book provides a new
perspective on theories of imperialism, colonial money and colonial
underdevelopment, with possible geostrategic historical lessons for the US
dollar and emerging global currencies such as Chinese renminbi and the Euro.

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1) The accepted history of British colonial
currency systems and the key questions.- 2) Currency policies for Britain (1698-1893):
adoption of the Gold Standard and rejection
of silver and bimetallism.- 3)Colonial currency policies (1600-1893): from
international to localized currencies.- 4) India 1893-1912: conflicts and imperial
resolution.- 5) Straits Settlements 1893 - 1912: the transition from India to West Africa.- 6) The establishment of the West African Currency
Board: 1893-1912.- 7) Conflicts over the administration of colonial
reserves in London (1927-1957), academic criticisms and imperial responses.- 8) Reassessment of the currency board debate.- 9) Currency and monetary policies in white settler
colonies.- 10) Conclusion.

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Wadan Narsey is a former Professor of Economics at The University of the South Pacific. He is currently an Adjunct Professor at The Cairns Institute, James Cook University, and at Swinburne University, Australia. He is a former Fiji parliamentarian, a commentator on the political economy of Fiji and the Pacific and a regular columnist for the Fiji Times. He has a personal website: NarseyOnFiji.

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