Asian Godfathers

Author: Joe Studwell
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 1847651445
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 362

Book Description
40 or 50 families control the economies of Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia. Their interests range from banking to property, from shipping to sugar, from vice to gambling. 13 of the 50 richest families in the world are in South East Asia yet they are largely unknown outside confined business circles. Often this is because they control the press and television as well as everything else. How do they do it? What are their secrets? And is it good news or bad for the places where they operate? Joe Studwell explosively lifts the lid on a world of staggering secrecy and shows that the little most people know is almost entirely wrong.

How Asia Works

Author: Joe Studwell
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802193471
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 434

Book Description
“A good read for anyone who wants to understand what actually determines whether a developing economy will succeed.” —Bill Gates, “Top 5 Books of the Year” An Economist Best Book of the Year from a reporter who has spent two decades in the region, and who the Financial Times said “should be named chief myth-buster for Asian business.” In How Asia Works, Joe Studwell distills his extensive research into the economies of nine countries—Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, and China—into an accessible, readable narrative that debunks Western misconceptions, shows what really happened in Asia and why, and for once makes clear why some countries have boomed while others have languished. Studwell’s in-depth analysis focuses on three main areas: land policy, manufacturing, and finance. Land reform has been essential to the success of Asian economies, giving a kick-start to development by utilizing a large workforce and providing capital for growth. With manufacturing, industrial development alone is not sufficient, Studwell argues. Instead, countries need “export discipline,” a government that forces companies to compete on the global scale. And in finance, effective regulation is essential for fostering, and sustaining growth. To explore all of these subjects, Studwell journeys far and wide, drawing on fascinating examples from a Philippine sugar baron’s stifling of reform to the explosive growth at a Korean steel mill. “Provocative . . . How Asia Works is a striking and enlightening book . . . A lively mix of scholarship, reporting and polemic.” —The Economist

The China Dream

Author: Joe Studwell
Publisher: Grove Press
ISBN: 9780802139757
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 406

Book Description
Examines the many attempts to capitalize on "the last big market in the world" stretching back seven hundred years and includes an analysis of the present unprecedented expansion.

Robert Kuok: A Memoir

Author: Robert Kuok
Publisher: Landmark Books Pte Ltd
ISBN: 9814189731
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 23

Book Description
Robert Kuok is one of the most highly respected businessmen in Asia. But this legendary Overseas Chinese entrepreneur, commodities trader who made his first milion on the London sugar market, hotelier of the Shangri-la chain, and property mogul has maintained a low profile and seldom shed light in public on his business empire or personal life. That is, until now. In these memoirs, the 94-year-old Kuok tells the remarkable story of how, starting in British Colonial Malaya, he built a multi-industry, multinational business group. In reflecting back on 75 years of conducting business, he offers management insights, discusses strategies and lessons learned, and relates his principles, philosophy, and moral code. Kuok has lived through fascinating and often tumultuous times in Asia – from British colonialism to Japanese military occupation to post-colonial Southeast Asia and the dramatic rise of Asian economies, including, more recently, China. From his front-row seat and as an active participant, this keen, multi-cultural observer tells nearly a century of Asian history through his life and times. Readers interested in business, management, history, politics, culture and sociology will all enjoy Robert Kuok’s unique and remarkable story.

Asian Water Monitor

Author: George William
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 30

Book Description
The Asian water monitor is an enormous reptile native to South and Southeast Asia. It is one of the most well-known monitor reptiles in Asia and is among the biggest reptiles on the planet.

A Kingdom in Crisis

Author: Andrew MacGregor Marshall
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1783607807
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
'Perhaps the best introduction yet to the roots of Thailand's present political impasse. A brilliant book.' Simon Long, The Economist Struggling to emerge from a despotic past, and convulsed by an intractable conflict that will determine its future, Thailand stands at a defining moment in its history. Scores have been killed on the streets of Bangkok. Freedom of speech is routinely denied. Democracy appears increasingly distant. And many Thais fear that the death of King Bhumibol Adulyadej is expected to unleash even greater instability. Yet in spite of the impact of the crisis, and the extraordinary importance of the royal succession, they have never been comprehensively analysed – until now. Breaking Thailand's draconian lèse majesté law, Andrew MacGregor Marshall is one of the only journalists covering contemporary Thailand to tell the whole story. Marshall provides a comprehensive explanation that for the first time makes sense of the crisis, revealing the unacknowledged succession conflict that has become entangled with the struggle for democracy in Thailand.

Hello, Shadowlands

Author: Patrick Winn
Publisher: Icon Books
ISBN: 1785783483
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 537

Book Description
'Reads like a thriller you can't put down' - Megha Rajagopalan, China Bureau Chief, Buzzfeed News 'ensures you'll never think about Southeast Asia in the same way ever again.' - Geographical Magazine Essential to understanding Southeast Asia in the 21st century, Hello, Shadowlands reveals a booming underworld of organised crime across a region in flux— a $100 billion trade that deals in narcotics, animals and people —and the staggering human toll that is being steadily ignored by the West. From Myanmar's anarchic hills to the swamplands of Vietnam, jihadis are being pitted against brothel workers, pet thieves against vigilantes and meth barons against Christian vice squads. Hello, Shadowlands takes a deep plunge into crime rings both large and small. It also examines how China's rise and America's decline is creating new opportunities for transnational syndicates to thrive. Focusing on human stories on both sides of this crime wave, the acclaimed Bangkok-based broadcaster and journalist Patrick Winn intimately profiles the men and women of the region who are forced to make agonizing choices in the absence of law.

The Asian Aspiration

Author: Greg Mills
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 1787385078
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description
In 1960, the GDP per capita of Southeast Asian countries was nearly half of that of Africa. By 1986 the gap had closed and today the trend is reversed, with more than half of the world's poorest now living in sub Saharan Africa. Why has Asia developed while Africa lagged? The Asian Aspiration chronicles the stories of explosive growth and changing fortunes: the leaders, events and policy choices that lifted a billion people out of abject poverty within a single generation, the largest such shift in human history. The relevance of Asia's example comes as Africa is facing a population boom, which can either lead to crisis or prosperity, and as Asia is again transforming, this time out of low-cost manufacturing into hi-tech, leaving a void that is Africa's for the taking. Far from the optimistic determinism of "Africa Rising," this book calls for unprecedented pragmatism in the pursuit of African success.

Realm of the Blue Mist: A Graphic Novel (The Rema Chronicles #1)

Author: Amy Kim Kibuishi
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
ISBN: 1338115162
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 275

Book Description
Enter the rich and fantastical world of Rema in the first installment of this middle-grade graphic novel series with sweeping adventure and light romance! Tabby Simon is determined to learn what happened to her father, who was found dead after researching a tree that leaks a mysterious mist in her neighborhood. She is unexpectedly led to Rema, a distant world of magic and beauty that is periodically invaded by a nearby planet desperate for resources. While Tabby searches for the truth surrounding her father's death, she meets a handsome blue-haired boy named Philip. He has his own dangerous secrets, but has promised to help Tabby get home. As she learns more about this strange world, Tabby discovers that she is destined for something far greater than she ever could have imagined.

Hong Kong, China

Author: Ralph Arnote
Publisher: Tor Books
ISBN: 9780812542899
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 369

Book Description
Four people among the teeming masses of the "Jewel of Asia" confront the destiny of a frightening and dangerous historic change, the reclaiming of Hong Kong by China in 1997, in a story of love, greed, and revenge. Reprint.