Customer Reviews

The Years of Living Dangerously: Asia - From Financial Crisis to the New Millenium

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In The Years Of Living Dangerously, Stephen Vines puts into perspective the events which propelled Asia's economies into an unprecedented period of growth, and authoritatively exposes the myth the notion that foreign investors were primarily responsible for the massive capital flight that precipitated the crash of the Asian markets and economies. Rather the responsibility lay with governmental excesses, nepotism, corruption, ignorance, and ideological inflexibility. A highly recommended addition to professional and academic economic studies and international studies reading lists, The Years Of Living Dangerously is a superbly written, wide-ranging analysis, and presents an ideal introduction to, and explanation of, recent and continuing Asian economic woes.

This is a pretty good book for those who were not paying attention to Asia during the 1990's. It is quite similar to Asian Eclipse by Backman. Indeed Vines even quotes Backman in 'Years'.
Vines has compiled lots of humourous anecdotes, but which will already be very familiar to those with any Asia experience.
Two areas which are weak: a few factual errors when Vines gets into the specifics of characters, esp. in areas he is obviously less familiar with, ie. Thailand. Also the book often contrasts 'bad' Asia with 'good' Japan, indicating that perhaps Vines could do with spending a bit more time studying Japan. Its not all good...

But a good overview of a very interesting period in a fascinating region of the world.