ABSTRACT
This chapter places colonial economic relations within the context of European reconstruction and economic liberalization after the Second World War. Initially, Britain and France focused on reorganizing colonial currency areas in support roles. However, from the late 1950s, Britain faced a choice between European integration and established overseas relations. Sustaining economic liberalization, moreover, required domestic adjustment as the economies of the overseas sterling area diversified. France and Portugal, by contrast, sought ways to build on their overseas currency zones to facilitate integration in Europe. Generally, however, experts emphasized the intra-regional integration of industrial economies and questioned pre-war approaches to imperial economies. Conceptions of empire shifted to arguments about the need to delineate the “developed” from the “underdeveloped” world. The conclusion elucidates this repositioning of Western Europe’s national economies in the world economy.
