1st Edition

Dynamics of Change in East Asia Historical Trajectories and Contemporary Development

By P.W. Preston Copyright 2018
    310 Pages 36 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    310 Pages 36 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Over the past forty years, East Asia has been radically transformed from a war-damaged sub-continent to a region of global pre-eminence. With new, highly developed scientific resources, great economic strengths, significant global trading links and equally powerful financial resources, East Asia is now one of the most dynamic regions in the global system.

    This book illuminates the historical development trajectory and contemporary circumstances of the countries of the region. Embracing a cross-disciplinary perspective, it summarises the history of the region and goes on to focus upon the rise of East Asia since the ruins of the Pacific War. Analysing the region’s basic strengths and the distinctive elite development strategies across the various countries, it also examines areas of domestic, intra-regional and international conflict. It covers the basic ground of political economy, society, culture and politics, whilst also taking care to locate the contemporary region in its own history and asking, what further change can be expected in the future?

    Providing an excellent introduction to the study of the region, this book is an important read for students and scholars of East Asian politics, history and development.

    Part One: Complex change and the logics of forms-of-life

    1. Argument making in social science

    2. Substantive theoretical traditions

    3.  Livelihood investigated

    Part Two: The shift to the modern world in East Asia

    4. Colonialism and modernity: the overall trajectory

    5. Colonialism and modernity: disentangling the issues

    Part Three: Successor elites and the pursuit of national development

    6. The dissolution of state-empires

    7. The formation of successor elites

    8. Power, authority and dissent

    9. Development issues faced

    Part Four: East Asia in the changing global system

    10. The region in overview

    11. Globalization and the end of history

    Part Five: East Asia: success and its costs

    12. Elite projects and post-colonial goals

    13. States, masses and the idea of democracy

    14. Collective memory and national pasts

    15. Performance and problem

    Biography

    P.W. Preston is Emeritus Professor of Political Sociology at the University of Birmingham, UK. His recent publications include Political-Cultural Developments in East Asia (2017) and The Logic of Chinese Politics (2016).