Anne Booth attended Victoria University of Wellington and the Australian National University in Canberra. She subsequently taught at the University of Singapore and returned to the Australian National University as a research fellow in 1979. In 1991, she moved to the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, as a professor in the Department of Economics, with reference to Asia. Her chief area of interest has been Southeast Asia with a particular interest in Indonesian economic history in the twentieth century.