Pacific Century: The Emergence of Modern Pacific Asia - Softcover

Borthwick, Mark

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0813343550 ISBN 13: 9780813343556

Publisher: Westview Press, 2007

Synopsis

The Asia-Pacific region is rapidly emerging as the global economic and political powerhouse of the twenty-first century. Looking at both Southeast and East Asia, this richly illustrated volume stresses broad, cross-cutting themes of regional history, with an emphasis on the interactions between cultures and nations. In this updated third edition, Mark Borthwick provides a significantly revised introduction, which places the contemporary rise of China within the context of the political, cultural, and economic evolution of the region since ancient times. He then considers more recent developments in their historical context, balancing national and international factors underlying Asia-Pacific economic growth and political change. New areas receiving attention in the third edition include Japan's recovery from economic stagnation, Japan's new political landscape, China's economic transformation and leadership in East Asian regionalism, the North Korean crisis, and the Asia-Pacific impact on the global economic system. The book also provides chronological updates for Cambodia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Borthwick concludes with an examination of the key domestic and international issues facing the nations of Pacific Asia and the growing influence of these nations on North America and the world economy.

About this title

From the Author:

Near the end of the twentieth century, the term "Pacific Century" became a catchphrase for a renaissance of optimism and economic growth that occurred throughout much of Pacific Asia. More recently it has been used to express an expectation that this region will exert a major influence over the history of the twenty-first century. Although it is used often in this manner with reference to the future, the term also accurately reflects the past -- more than a century of modernizing encounters with the West that have profoundly shaped the region. The 21st century may one day bear the sobriquet of the great ocean but the general outlines of Asia's future were formed during the past century.

This book looks but tangentially at the distant future, being devoted primarily to understanding the emergence of modern Pacific Asia from the nineteenth century to the present. Historians can point to several, perhaps many such "Pacific" eras over millennia in which Asians interacted on a broad scale but surely none has been as globally significant as the present one. By reviewing and integrating the past with the present we are better able to understand why Pacific Asia, after more than a century of conflict and subjugation by the West, has revived with such force and dynamism.

From the Inside Flap:

This new edition of Pacific Century takes account of major economic and political transformations that have taken place in Asia since the second edition went to press in mid-1977. Consequently, there has been much to revise and add even as the fundamental forces of demography, economics and geography that were described in the second edition continue to exert their influences.

The most obvious and far-reaching changes in Asia that are covered in this third edition are associated with China's remarkable scale and velocity of growth. Several chapters have been modified and expanded to reflect this important reality, particularly Chapter 10, "China's Long March Toward Modernization." At the same time, the narrative does not presume or suggest that China's current ascendance means that it will follow an invariable, straight-line path to future dominance over the region. Similarly, although an important part of the "message" in teaching about contemporary Pacific Asia is its growing influence in world affairs, there can be no certainty about its actual course of progress in this respect. Nothing could reflect this reality more than the Asian financial crisis that began its sweep across the region as the second edition went to press. A great deal has subsequently been written and debated about the crisis and its impacts. These are reflected in the revision of Chapter 7, "The New Asian Capitalists." Similarly, Chapter 6, "Miracle By Design," provides an updated review and analysis of Japan's struggle to emerge from the doldrums of its economic stagnation in the 1990s.

The Asian financial crisis served not only as an agent of change for national economies and individual companies, it became a stimulus for political change as well, most notably in Indonesia, where President Suharto's long tenure finally crumbled under the combined pressures of a collapsing economy, a discredited military, and a frustrated population eager to try new, more democratic approaches to governance. The extraordinary transition to democracy in Indonesia and the related changes in neighboring countries are included in the revision of Chapter 8, "Power, Authority, and the Advent of Democracy."

Asia-Pacific regional integration and Asia's growing global impact are also major trends that cannot be overlooked in any contemporary survey. In order to make these topics more understandable, the text and supporting online study materials provide some basic macroeconomic concepts and principles. The new title for Chapter 13, "Asia's Resurgence and Its Global Implications," reflects an important new emphasis in the book regarding our new Pacific Century in which Asia will play and increasingly influential role in world affairs.

Notwithstanding the importance of economic and political changes, no survey of Pacific Asia is complete without a review and update of regional security issues. Current descriptions of the primary security issues have been seeded throughout the text as deemed necessary, with the confrontation over North Korean nuclear weapons development as a special addition to Chapter 9, "Sentimental Imperialists: America's Cold War in Asia."

Arguably the most important change in the Third Edition is its integration with the Pacific Century website noted above, which, in addition to providing an online Study Guide and Faculty Manual, contains other study and research resources as well as links and commentaries on current affairs in Pacific Asia.

About this edition

• Publisher: Westview Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0813343550
• ISBN 13: 9780813343556
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 616