Review

"...a thoughtful and thought-provoking in-depth study of the economic evolution of Asian societies and cultures." -- Wisconsin Bookwatch (The Midwest Book Review), December 2002

From the Author

The past 150 years in Asia looks very different if your optic is relations between China and Japan rather than the bilateral relations of either with the US. In "How Asia Got Rich," I have tried to take that history and bring it up to date, particularly in the context of Japan's Cold War and post-Cold War relations with the rest of Asia. The book is about the changing geopolitics of the region, and how Japan's struggle to find a new social and economic paradigm is bound up in its quest for a new role in Asia. The book is also highly personal. I grew up in Asia, as the daughter of a State Department 'missionary' of the free market whose job was to remake Asia in the American model in the 1950s and 1960s. I weave my own family's history into the larger history, as well as my decade of experience covering Japan as a correspondent. The Asian miracle was a composite product: made in America, Japan, and China. I hope that the book will help readers understand more vivi! dly the dynamism as well as the fragility of this process.