Book Overview

From the re-emergence of Japan as an industrial power in the 1950s through to the contemporary rise of China as a potential economic and political behemoth, the story of East Asian development has been central to any serious analysis of the dynamics and trajectory of the global political economy. Integrated into a coherent, critical narrative, this book examines key political-economic and social dynamics that helped forge the ‘miracle’ economies of East Asia and continue to drive them forward in the volatile circumstances of our current epoch. It analyses the relation between the state and markets; the changing nature of economic governance and its relation to inequality; and the rise of China and its international consequences. Historically informed and comparative in nature, the book contributes to the analysis of the transformations of Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and China, and is the first to cover the ground in one volume. Written by a leading analyst of East Asian development, the book engages with the relevant issues and debates, in an open, non-technical language, making it useful as an advanced textbook not only for East Asian studies, but more generally in international political economy and development studies.