Book Cover -- Title -- Contents -- List of Tables -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- Map of Great Britain and its tropical colonies -- Introduction and framework -- The tropical colonies in the mid-Victorian age (1850 70): opportunities and problems -- Early development theory and the spread of empire, 1870 85 -- The colonial 'scramble' and Joseph Chamberlain's development plans, 1885 1903 -- First fruits: colonial development, 1903 14 -- The impact of the First World War and its aftermath -- The economics of 'trusteeship': colonial development policy 1921 9 -- Depression and disillusion: the colonial economies in the 1930s -- The 'colonial question' and towards colonial reform, 1930 40 -- A new sense of urgency: planning for colonial development during and after the Second World War, 1940 8 -- An impossible task? Problems of financing colonial economic and social development, 1946 60 -- The triumph of the Chamberlain view: new directions in colonial economic development after the Second World War -- Developing the 'great estate': the legacies of colonialism and development -- Appendixes -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.