In this provocative and iconoclastic investigation of east Asian development, Joe Studwell dissects the region's history to show how heady economic growth rates masked a divided continent - one half the most extraordinary developmental success story ever seen, the other half a paper tiger.
The first book to offer an Asia - wide deconstruction of success and failure in economic development. How Asia works contains findings that refute almost everything that economists have claimed in recent decades and reveal deep truths about the drivers of accelerated growth. The scale of our misunderstanding about how the needs of emerging economies differ from those of development ones is truly shocking.