In the early 1960s, fewer than five percent of Japanese owned automobiles, China’s per capita income was among the lowest in Asia, and living standards in South Korea’s rural areas were on par with some of the world’s poorest countries. Today, these are three of the most powerful economies on earth. Dwight Perkins grapples with both the contemporary and historical causes and consequences of the turnaround, drawing on firsthand experience in the region to explain how Asian countries sustained such rapid economic growth in the second half of the twentieth century.
East Asian Development offers a comprehensive view of the region, from Japan and the “Asian Tigers” (Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea) to Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and China—a behemoth larger than all the other economies combined. While the overall picture of Asian growth is positive, no single economic policy has been effective regionwide. Interventionist policies that worked well in some countries failed elsewhere. Perkins analyzes income distribution, to uncover why initially egalitarian societies have ended up in very different places, with Japan, for example, maintaining a modest gap between rich and poor while China has become one of Asia’s most unequal economies.
Today, the once-dynamic Japanese and Korean economies are sluggish, and even China shows signs of losing steam. Perkins investigates whether this is a regional phenomenon or typical of all economies at this stage of development. His inquiry reminds us that the uncharted waters of China’s vast economy make predictions of its future performance speculative at best.
Discovering Singaporean identity through cooking and cuisine
While eating is a universal experience, for Singaporeans it carries strong national connotations. The popular Singaporean-English phrase "Die die must try" is not so much hyperbole as it is a reflection of the lengths that Singaporeans will go to find great dishes.
In Eating Her Curries and Kway: A Cultural History of Food in Singapore, Nicole Tarulevicz argues that in a society that has undergone substantial change in a relatively short amount of time, food serves Singaporeans as a poignant connection to the past. Eating has provided a unifying practice for a diverse society, a metaphor for multiracialism and recognizable national symbols for a fledgling state. Covering the period from British settlement in 1819 to the present and focusing on the post–1965 postcolonial era, Tarulevicz tells the story of Singapore through the production and consumption of food.
Analyzing a variety of sources that range from cookbooks to architectural and city plans, Tarulevicz offer a thematic history of this unusual country, which was colonized by the British and operated as a port within Malaya. Connecting food culture to the larger history of Singapore, she discusses various topics including domesticity and home economics, housing and architecture, advertising, and the regulation of food-related manners and public behavior such as hawking, littering, and chewing gum. Moving away from the predominantly political and economic focus of other histories of Singapore, Eating Her Curries and Kway provides an important alternative reading of Singaporean society.
A rare study of labor migration in the Global South, Ethnic Dissent and Empowerment answers essential questions about why nations export and import migrant workers and how the workers protect themselves not only within the system, but by circumventing it altogether.
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