"An excellent resource to understand the Asia phenomenon...The book neither lectures nor proselytizes -- it teaches, and teaches extremely well." -- Millenium
"Borthwick's narrative is effective and quite readable, especially given the immense amount of material covered." -- Journal of Asian Business
From the Author
Near the end of the twentieth century, the term "Pacific Century" became a catchphrase for a renaissance of optimism and economic growth that occurred throughout much of Pacific Asia. More recently it has been used to express an expectation that this region will exert a major influence over the history of the twenty-first century. Although it is used often in this manner with reference to the future, the term also accurately reflects the past -- more than a century of modernizing encounters with the West that have profoundly shaped the region. The 21st century may one day bear the sobriquet of the great ocean but the general outlines of Asia's future were formed during the past century.
This book looks but tangentially at the distant future, being devoted primarily to understanding the emergence of modern Pacific Asia from the nineteenth century to the present. Historians can point to several, perhaps many such "Pacific" eras over millennia in which Asians interacted on a broad scale but surely none has been as globally significant as the present one. By reviewing and integrating the past with the present we are better able to understand why Pacific Asia, after more than a century of conflict and subjugation by the West, has revived with such force and dynamism.