Revised and Expanded Second Edition. Concise yet comprehensive, Zhiqun Zhu’s book is the perfect introduction to the political economy of East Asia for undergraduate and advanced high school classes. Zhu’s analysis of the economic ‘miracles’ of Japan, South Korea, China and Taiwan takes into account both domestic factors and the international environment, and is sensitive to the similarities as well as differences between the developmental experiences of these nations. Zhu raises important related issues such as the connections between economic development and democratization, the relative economic contributions of the state and the market, and the portability of the East Asian developmental model. East Asia’s diverse but dynamic experience is valuable precisely because it demonstrates that developing nations need not follow a single approach to prosperity. An excellent book to assign for courses on Asia.
