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50 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Big picture by a smooth talker; valuable, March 17, 2008
I like this book. It is stimulating and relevant. Also, his perspective is especially valuable for Americans, who understand very little about Asia (or Africa or Latin America - areas that this author calls "the Rest," as opposed to N. America/Europe as "the West").
Having praised this book, I now want to explain what it is and is not. The author is making a case (and a good one), but as with all such "big thinkers" glossing over much in his search for generalizations.
Indeed, his approach is captured at the very outset, under "Acknowledgements," when he thanks his main research assistant who, with his argument in mind, would "find the right statistics and anecdotes to bolster many of the points I made." Not social science, but certain the way most wide-ranging policy makers and analysts operate. (I personally have performed such functions for policy-makers.)
His basic theme - other than the rise of Asia - is that free-enterprise-based economic growth (or "development" if you prefer) produces a vital middle class. This well-educated and affluent sector in turn changes the tenor of life in a society, bringing not only more economic progress but more competent government that serves all (or most) sectors of society.
As usual with such books (and thinkers) many of the finer points and issues are glossed over in the narrative. For example, in his zeal for free enterpise (laissez faire economics) he skirts the positive and sometimes absolutely necessary functions of regulation by public agencies. He also is weak on the shortcomings of so-called "meritocracy," for example, its tendency to pass inherited privileges and skills through unequal access to quality education and career contacts.
Limitations notwithstanding, among his arguments and anecdotes given to bolster the case are important points that Western (US and European) audiences need to hear. For example, on pp. 85-86 he discusses the rule of law and compares patterns in Asia with the West.
My own inclination is toward books by specialists. However, now and again, and especially on topics as important as our understanding of and relations with Asia and "the Rest", "big thinkers" provide me with valuable insights and perhaps refresh understandings that I had decades ago but blurred with age and other experiences.
I highly recommend this book. I lament that many of my conservative friends won't even consider learning something by reading it, and that many of my more liberal friends won't read it because they think that they "already know these issues and points."
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40 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hail the March to Modernity!, May 23, 2008
First I noticed the controversy about this book in Hard Talk on BBC, where the host and the author did some very unsatisfactory pirouettes around the contentious issues, which are related to the Western reservations about current Asian progress. Then I read an even worse interview in Der Spiegel, where the interviewers excelled in stupidity while the author excelled in stubbornness.
Consequently I had to pick up the book and read it. KM expects to provoke 'us' Westerners, but he asks some pundits to write blurbs, which Summers and Zbig and others did.
KM's thesis is this: Asia rises, and that is good for the world. The Western leaders have trouble in adjusting their mental maps, which are trapped in the past. Asia has benefitted from the world system as established after WW2 and has no interest in endangering it. The current wave of optimism will enter West Asia as well and Pakistan, Iran and others will want to have the same progress as China and India etc...
The March to Modernity is good for all, and it is not just material, rather the escape from poverty has far reaching immaterial value for the masses of Asia.
In short, KM is a 'hopeless' optimist, and I do hope that his victorious scenario wins. My biggest doubts are over the Islamic world's ability to join the trend. Maybe KM knows better. I do hope so.
One surprise for me was that KM steps away from the old litany of Lee Kuan Yew and others, i.e. that Asian economic success is due to traditonal Confucian values. In the contrary, KM argues that China, India, and the others, are following Japan in adopting the '7 pillars' that were the basis of the West's surge forward some centuries ago. These 7 pillars are: 1. free economy (expect Adam Smith in the Asian pantheon of the future!), 2.science (enormous push forward; quote Rajiv Gandhi: better brain drain than brain in the drain); 3. meritocracy/equal opportunity, a trend which requires overcoming huge traditional obstacles, but which is clearly on the way; 4.pragmatism: possibly a euphemism for copying; 5.a culture of peace (maybe hard to believe for many in the West); 6. the rule of law: far from being an attained target so far; 7.education.
If KM is right, the adoption of Western values is going far beyond copying Gucci bags and Lacoste shirts. In that sense I would'nt be surprised if he got as much headwind in Asia as in the West.
The headwind in the West comes from his criticism of the exportation of democracy into nations that are not ready for it. And of course from his criticism of the way the West dominates the international institutions and applies double standards.
Why are we not happy with the Asians following our example? Because it means loss of power, plain and simple.
Can't say that I don't see his point. Equally I think he is right in blaming the current Western leadership for gross incompetence in critical issues such as Middle East policy (the Iraq invasion as the single worst case of bad judgment and terrible implementation), free trade, nuclear non-proliferation, global warming...
Incidentally, KM points out, at the time when Giordano Bruno was burned for heresy in Rome, the Muslim emperor Akbar the Great pronounced principles of a secular government in India. So much for Western conceipt.
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24 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mahbubani's chef d' oeuvre, February 9, 2008
After his too previous books, "Can Asians Think?" and "Beyond the Age of Innocence", Professor Kishore Mahbubani has delivered his most mature work in this book. The book is both a pleasure to read, thanks to Mahbubani's amicable style (seasoned during 33 years in the diplomatic service), as well as brilliantly argued and intellectually appealing. The author offers incisive criticisms of Western policies and attitudes on several global issues and an illuminating analysis of areas where Asians seem to have been doing better lately. He is meticulously open-minded and as unbiased as one can get; he gives credit to the West for all the good it has done to the world (from the establishment of international norms of law to great universities), but also highlights its shortcomings. Still, he remains free of ideological constrains. Moreover, the author, being experienced both as a diplomat and an academic, possesses a keen didactic ability to explain his ideas to one who may be, for any reason, inclined to find them counter-intuitive.
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