An examination of the complex web of Chinese operations dominating the Far East's booming economies is part economic analysis, part history, and part cautionary tale that encompasses murder, betrayal, corruption, and syndicates and features kingmakers, emperors, generals, spies, and pirates.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
On one level, this book is a lively version of Chinese history from 1100 B.C. to the present, through the screen of the dealings of its merchant class. On another level, it is an Arabian Nights tale of scandal, war, politics and, above all, money-making. "To be rich is good," runs an old Chinese proverb. On yet another level, it is a brilliant analysis of the enormous power wielded by a widely scattered group of 55 million Chinese merchants who live in self-imposed or government-ordered exile throughout Asia and, increasingly, in the U.S. and Canada. In the scramble of Western entrepreneurs for footholds in China's enormous markets, asserts Seagrave (The Soong Dynasty), this is the group to reckon with. They're already there. They have a hammerlock on commerce in nearly every country of the Pacific Rim. It is they who financed the current economic boom that has made China the third largest market in the world after the U.S. and Japan, and they who have the greatest stakes in which direction post-Deng China takes. To top off his engrossing account, Seagrave speculates on several possibilities including the breakaway of some southern regions, origin of most of the overseas Chinese, into independent countries. Seagrave has delivered an engrossing mercantile history and he looks forward, with a blend of apprehension and admiration, to the early 21st century, when China is expected to become the world's largest market and the Chinese to join the ranks of the world's most powerful producers.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Seagrave, the son of missionary parents, has written numerous books about the Far East, including Dragon Lady (LJ 3/15/92). He believes that today 55 million expatriate Chinese dominate the economy of the Pacific Rim. Here he explores how these overseas Chinese came to be so powerful. Seagrave begins in the 11th century B.C.E., when merchants were exiled to the South China coast by the oppressive Chou dynasty. They then moved offshore, establishing economic power bases. Seagrave describes how over the centuries the overseas Chinese became incredibly rich. He discusses many contemporary issues, including their financing of the economic boom in China, how they achieved an edge on Western companies, and how even the Japanese cannot do business without their assistance. His is an engaging and absorbing history appropriate for the general reader as well as the specialist. Highly recommended.?W. L. Wuerch, Micronesian Area Research Ctr., Univ. of Guam
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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More About the Author
Sterling Seagrave (born 1937) is the author of eleven non-fiction histories and biographies, many co-authored with his wife, Peggy Seagrave. He grew up in Asia, in the remote Golden Triangle opium country on the Burma-China border, when Burma was still part of British India. He is in the 5th generation of American medical missionaries and teachers who came to Burma in 1832. He was in Burma when it was invaded by Japan in 1942, but with other family members were aboard the last refugee ship to India. His father, bestselling author of Burma Surgeon and Burma Surgeon Returns, was General Stilwell's chief medical officer in the CBI Theater. In 1947-8 when Britain gave Burma its independence, multiple civil wars broke out that continue today, and led to a military dictatorship still in power now. He was educated at a boarding school in India, then later in North and South America. In 1958, he dropped out of college and went to Cuba, age 21, as a stringer for the Chicago Daily News, instead helping Fidelistas in Pinar del Rio move ammunition and medicines brought by smuggling boats from the Florida Everglades. Since age 18, he has been a journalist at various newspapers including four years at The Washington Post. In 1965 he resigned to freelance throughout Asia for magazines including TIME, LIFE, Newsweek, Esquire, GEO, Atlantic, and Smithsonian. In 1979, he began writing investigative books, about the secret use of chemical and biological weapons, followed by a series of books on the powerful dynastic families of Asia, revealing their true histories disguised by propaganda and hagiographies. Death threats from Taiwan followed publication of The Soong Dynasty, a nationwide bestseller and top choice of the Book of the Month Club. The film option was purchased by George Roy Hill and Paul Newman. Next came books about Japan's looting of Asia in WW2, and how the treasure "vanished" when it was secretly recovered by the CIA to bribe foreign dictators and oligarchs. More death threats caused him to move to Europe in 1985 with Peggy Seagrave. They are now French citizens, writing their twelfth book. Many have been bestsellers in multiple languages, including Mongol. In France Seagrave has published three French editions in Paris, and has had long interviews in Paris Match, Nouvel Observateur, and Valeurs Actuel. They lived on a sailboat for ten years, then moved ashore to restore a 13th C stone wine-cave first built by the Knights Templar. It is surrounded by vineyards, with fine views of the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean. They have spent 17 years restoring it, while continuing to research and write books.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
a wee gem,
By
This review is from: Lords of the Rim (Hardcover)
I was pleasantly surprised by this offering of Sterling Seagrave's as normally, his works would be double the thickness of this book but hey, isn't it this saying that don't judge the book by its cover? The book spanned thousands of years, going back through time in China illustrating to us what events led to the exodus of Chinese overseas. I simply couldn't put the book down reading about those legendary statesmen like Sun Ping, Sun Tzu, Wu Tze Shih, Chao Tsao, & so forth. I vaguely knew of what my older generations told me about them when I was a kid but now, everything is coming back to me. Sterling Seagrave is at his best unwoven all the complex threads that have had been set up by those master puppeteer, who in this case is none other than overseas Chinese. I don't believe the author is making up stories here at all. Many readers found the content rather far-fetched but people in the region would disagree with that because South-East Asia is undeniably an interesting place to be. Rather, I'm astounded by his in-depth knowledge of what's happening in the South East Asia. Many of the incidents mentioned were happening in my time & I could still vividly remembered what I read in the newspaper or what I heard from the older generations who used to work for those tycoons. Whilst it's true that the second part of the book is becoming overbearing (probably it's because I have known of the incidents already or that it's already been covered in other Sterling Seagrave's offering), overall, this is still a well-researched book. A job very well-done, indeed.
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Why is this book currently out of print and unavailable ???,
By A Customer
This review is from: Lords of the Rim (Hardcover)
Conspicuous by its absence, Sterling Seabright's Lords of the Rim has clearly ruffled more than a few feathers, at least in the Chinese Pacific Rim Community. It strikes me as odd that Seabright's EXCELLENT TREATMENT of such topical subjects as Chinese Triad criminal activity, colonialism, monopoly and banking practices and, most recently, the triggering of the so-called Asian contagion by an oligarchy of greedy, Chinese-Thai land speculators and monopolists should suddenly be unavailable. Perhaps Seagrave's blunt warning to us and his glaring examples from elsehwere on the Rim were a tad too clear for Canada's cloyingly naive immigration and multicultural establishment. We, in Canada are arguably next in line for slow colonization of China's Triad driven migration . Seagrave does well to warn us of it. Other, less cogent and less relevant works by the same author are easy to find. What, then, has happened to Lords of the Rim?? Seagrave's publisher does us a disservice by not making such a recent Seabright work available.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Refreshing & Thought Provoking,
By A Customer
This review is from: Lords of the Rim (Hardcover)
This book gives a compelling view of the world of the expatriate Chinese, whom many have been settled throughout the world. Some may be rich and some may be poor. It gives a very in-depth explaination of what and how the expatriate Chinese came about and why they are so. Being a descendent of expatriate Chinese myself, I find this book very refreshing and provides me with a clearer picture of the intricacies of the workings of the Chinese, particularly in South East Asian countries. Besides that, Mr. Seagrave has also shown how the networks of the Chinese have come about and gives me a sense of things to come about. After reading this book, the reader will no doubt gain a better understanding of the cultural differences between the west and the east, particularly the Chinese. This points to a greater opportunity of cooperation and understanding between cultures and thus between governments and businesses of the west and the east.
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