Mapping ASEAN: Achieving Peace, Prosperity, and Sustainability in Southeast Asia

For half a century, ten dynamic nations in Southeast Asia have been implementing a shared vision of economic growth, sustainable development, and cultural progress. Today, the economies of those nations are linked inextricably with the future of greater Asia as well as with the United States and the other Western countries. With authoritarianism and protectionism on the rise around the world and the catastrophic effects of global warming making action urgent, the nations that form the Association of Southeast Asia Nations are more relevant and under greater political and social stress than ever.
In these illuminating pages, David Carden, the first American resident ambassador to ASEAN, paints a vivid portrait of the regional and global cooperation required to meet today, and interconnected future. Carden takes us behind the scenes as the leaders of these ten nations work to prepare their countries and their region for the 21st century. Carden persuasively argues that the unfolding story of the ASEAN nations is a story for the entire worldthat we are all increasingly interdependent and confronted with the existential need to solve the same set of challenges.

David. L. Carden was the first resident US ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The approach taken by the US Mission to ASEAN under his leadership was based on understanding, promoting, and protecting the human and natural systems upon which the region depends and earned him the US Department of State's Superior Honor award. A former partner at the international law firm Jones Day, Carden also serves as the chairman of the advisory board for the Center for Rural Engagement at Indiana University, where he continues his work with communities to research and implement evidence-based, scalable solutions to the challenges they face.