The Trouble With Tigers: The Rise and Fall of South-East Asia - Softcover

Mallet, Victor

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006388884 ISBN 13: 9780006388883

Publisher: HarperCollins Business, 2000

Synopsis

The most frank, readable and detailed account available in the English language of the political, economic, environmental and cultural changes sweeping through south-east Asia.

By the mid-1990s, south-east Asia and its fast-growing economies were the envy of the world. The region’s leaders boasted that their societies, based on hard work and family values, were superior to those of the decadent West. Then came the financial crash of 1997.
The Trouble with Tigers examines in detail the miracle that turned sour, including:
· the debate about the existence of ‘Asian values’
· the relationship between democracy and authoritarianism
· SE Asia’s Generation X – as wild and happy-go-lucky as any Western teenagers
· the region’s political and business leaders
· the environmental disaster befalling the region
· power politics – between Russia, China and the United States – in the region

Victor Mallet talks to politicians, drug addicts, environmentalists, warlords, prostitutes, peasant farmers and captains of industry in a vivid and perceptive study that sheds much-needed light on the complextities of this varied region.

About this title

Review:

Victor Mallet has been a correspondent of the Financial Times in Southeast Asia since 1991 and he brings first hand observation of the effects of the unprecedented rapid economic development of Southeast Asian agrarian societies over three decades and of the impact of the sudden economic slump that began in 1997. Basically, he sees little that is intrinsically "Asian" in all of this. The promotion of Asian value is seen as a doomed attempt by authoritarian leaders to appeal to ideals of a previous era in times of bewildering change.

The principal causes for the current upheavals are seen as the lag between the extraordinarily rapid economic changes and the failure to develop appropriate modern social and political institutions. The main strength of this timely book is the way in which Mallet has been able to use his unique access to people of all walks life to give detailed but compelling depictions of each of the 10 countries of Southeast Asia. Despite the enormity of their problems, the reader is given a basis on which to feel confident about their future. --Michael Yahuda

Review:

‘If there is a better primer on South-East Asia, it must be a very good book indeed’
Sunday Business

‘Mallet’s book is engagingly written and rich in anecdote... his painstaking research brings Asian society to life’
Financial Times

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins Business
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0006388884
• ISBN 13: 9780006388883
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368