Asian Values, Western Dreams: Understanding the new Asia

Greg Sheridan

Oct 1999 · Allen & Unwin

About this ebook

Asian Values, Western Dreams provides a provocative examination of the cultural relationship between Asia and the West. It asks a simple question: how do Asian societies maintain their cultural uniqueness in the face of Western cultural, economic and military power, in the face of globalisation?

In the wake of the regional economic crisis, Sheridan examines lives and societies in stress and transition. He draws on hundreds of interviews across Asia and the United States, from Presidents and Prime Ministers to beggars and housewives, from civil servants and traders to politicians and prostitutes. He challenges popular interpretations from Western gurus such as Sam Huntington, Francis Fukuyama and former Hong Kong governor, Chris Patten. Instead Sheridan chases Asian Values down the houtungs (lane ways) of Beijing and across the kampungs of Malaysia, into the old colonial cities of India and out to the smallest village in the Philippines countryside. He draws on a wide range of scholarship and twenty years experience working in the region to offer an ambitious, region-wide interpretation of the Asian Values debate.

A mixture of travel writing and cultural and political analysis, Asian Values, Western Dreams offers insights into relations between Asian nations, as well as between Asia and the West. Whether for the executive or student, the Western traveller or the Asian reader interested in learning about their neighbours, Asian Values, Western Dreams is an indispensable guide to the new Asia.

About the author

Greg Sheridan is the foreign editor of The Australian, the author of Tigers (1997) and the editor of Living With Dragons (1995). He first became involved with Asia through following the story of the Vietnamese boat people in the 1970s. His first trips into Asia were to report on refugee camps throughout South-East Asia.