the part British business played in the development of Malaysia 9s two primary industries, tin and rubber, and in its newly emerging secondary industries, such as palm oil.<br><br> In his conclusion, White successfully details the domestic, regional, and international developments that are crucial to understanding the experiences of British firms in postcolonial Malaysia, demonstrating how, unlike Burma or India, the Malaysian government cleverly utilized British interests for its own ends. In so doing, the newly independent Malaysian state was able to redefine its relations with British enterprises and the British government and to attain a degree of autonomy and self-determination, enabling it to acquire the much needed political and economic support for Malaysian interests. White does not subscribe to the mainstream idea that Malaysia underwent a cpseudoindependence, d as has been suggested by several authors of Malaysian contemporary economic and political histories, such as Hua Wu Yin, Greg Poulgrain, James Jesudason, and Lim Mah Hui.<br><br> Instead, White argues that although British business interests initially dominated the Malaysian economy, eventually they were marginalized by indigenous businesses and, to some extent, by other foreign competitors, which, unlike U.K. firms, had established close relations with the government. White maintains that British businessmen lacked bargaining power with the Malaysian government.<br><br> Not only were British firms, commercial associations, and business leaders clargely irrelevant in government policy-making d; they were also cfrequently frustrated with the final shape taken by Malaysia d (p. 37). Moreover, the cinternecine rivalries and jealousies d that had plagued British business groups in colonial Malaya 4and continued to do so during the postcolonial era 4added to the cconstant fears of expatriate managers and directors about Malaysia 9s political, economic and social future d (p.<br><br> viii), further reduced their bargaining power. Thus, cthe Alliance regime was able to direct British interests into desired channels, manipulating overseas business to meet national economic objectives d (p. 197).<br><br> All these factors, White claims, contradict the assumption that Malaysia was a neocolonialist state. Nor does White agree with those who argue that British business in Malaysia lacked entrepreneurial dynamism. His arguments follow Geoffrey Jones 9s conclusions, put forth in Merchants to Multinationals: British Trading Companies in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (2000), that British business groups occupied strong positions, not only in the existing tin and rubber industries but also in new areas of secondary production, such as palm oil.<br><br> Indeed White asserts that cif there was a post-colonial British entrepreneurial failure in Malaysia, it manifested itself in an inability to fully integrate with Malaysian political and economic elite after Independence d (p. 214). While other foreign competitors, primarily Japanese firms, were able to collaborate effectively with the Malaysian government and Chinese businesses, British firms were inhibited by their pessimism toward the Malaysian government, while their colonial attitudes prevented them from forming alliances with Chinese enterprises.<br><br> White overlooks the fact that, even before World War I, the Germans, like the Japanese before World War II, were willing to work closely with Chinese businesses and thus were able to make inroads into the Malayan economy. In addition, as White explains, British business interests were repeatedly frustrated with the Malaysian approach to policymaking. Their alienation from the political elite was compounded by the Alliance 9s coercive raising of campaign funds and unorthodox Malaysian business practices.<br><br> Yet White maintains that this alienation was a two-way street, as Malaysian policymakers were equally frustrated with the cdrawn-out decision-making processes on the part of British industrialists d (p. 202). Adding to their difficulties, British businesses did not receive support from the U.K.<br><br> government, which was more concerned with geopolitics and strategy, and thus refused to press the Malaysian state on behalf of British firms. Additionally, in the mid- 1960s, can accelerated 8disengagement 9 between Britain and Malaysia impacted negatively upon U.K. 9s financial, commercial and industrial nexus in Commonwealth Southeast Asia d (p. viii).<br><br> Uncertainty about the political and economic future of Malaysia and Southeast Asia further hindered the growth of British business in postcolonial Malaysia. While British companies sought to relocate in the United States and the cwhite commonwealth d of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, other foreign non-British competitors, primarily American and Japanese, saw the potential of Malaysia 9s future economic growth and used their csolid and influential governmental contacts d to gather strength in the Malaysian economy. Unlike the U.S.<br><br> and Japanese multinationals, which were seeking to relocate their labor-intensive production, these cold d British firms had not developed industries that were able to exploit cheap labor in the Malaysian free-trade zones. As White emphasizes, cBritish businesses in Malaysia (and Singapore) had more to fear from international capitalism than [from] international communism d (p. 202).<br><br> In his concluding chapter, White thoughtfully provides a brief account of the fate of certain British business groups. Unlike recent British multinationals, such as Unilever, Shell, and British American Tobacco, the leading British agency houses at the time, such as Guthrie, Sime Darby, and Harissons and Crosfield, were reluctant cto embrace the possibilities of a Commonwealth commercial and financial partnership, d eventually leading to their demise. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, these British businesses had entirely succumbed to the pressures of localization.<br><br> White does an outstanding job of demonstrating the limits of neocolonialism by revealing the more nuanced and sophisticated response of the postcolonial Malaysian government toward expatriate enterprises. As in colonial days, both the postcolonial Malaysian and U.K. governments had a less than sanguine view of British investments.<br><br> White 9s excellent work will enliven the long-standing debate on Malaysia 9s cneo- colonialist d state and underscore the origins of crony capitalism in Malaysia, an arrangement that continues to prevail and to undermine economic systems worldwide. Drawn from newly released business and government papers in Britain and Malaysia, White 9s work is essential reading for anyone interested in postcolonial Malaysia and postimperial Commonwealth history and politics. Business historians will find that his work demonstrates the importance of understanding the often tenuous relations between business and government and of recognizing the various ways that such relations can affect business developments.<br><br> Shakila Yacob is senior lecturer at the Department of History, University of Malaya. She recently completed her Ph.D. in business history at the University of Reading School of Business.<br><br> At present she is working on U.S. foreign direct investment in postcolonial Malaysia and also on the history of international business in Malaysia. She is the author of The United States: The Formation of a Nation-State (2004), one of the first books to be written in the Malay language (Bahasa Melayu).<br><br>

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