Dr Beaglehole gives a detailed chronological study of Munro's administrative career up to 1820, when he was appointed Governor of Madras. This 1966 book discusses the background to Munro's ideas on administration and shows that similar ideas came to be adopted by the East India Company's governing body in London.

Thomas Munro was among the most important of British thinker-administrators who shaped imperial rule in India. He was the creator, in the early nineteenth century, of the revenue and administrative system of two vast territories that were controlled by colonial authority from Madras andBombay, and his life stands even today as a symbol of the more thoughtful and humane aspects of foreign rule over India. This scholarly biography draws for the first time upon the full range, hitherto unavailable, of the Munro papers to present a revealing insight into the intellectual basis ofearly colonialism, and the influence of Thomas Munro in the shaping of British policy.