East Asia in Transition: Toward a New Regional Order; The Southeast Asian Economic Miracle

Two unusually thoughtful collections of essays by prominent American and Asian scholars on political and economic developments in East Asia after the Cold War. The volume on Southeast Asia has an outstanding concluding chapter that seeks to summarize the reasons for the Southeast Asian economic "miracle." The factors identified are government stability, investment in primary education, pushing exports of manufactured goods rather than primary products, ideological pragmatism, some form of minimal government intervention, low inflation, and the administration of power by highly capable, committed bureaucracies that are relatively free of graft. The volume on East Asia's transition has uniformly good essays on economic and political change, the policies of the great and local powers, and the prospects for building a new regional order. Each of these volumes would be ideal for a college course.