Beginning with the premise that the "Western-centered perspective is no longer adequate" to understand the process of economic development, Berger suggests that analysts look more closely at East Asia. Japan and the "four tigers" (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore) have modernized in a manner sufficiently different from the West, he argues, that they constitute an alternate model for the process.
The ten essays that follow are consistently strong, and in total they succeed admirably in making Berger's point. Gustav Papanek's long chapter provides a stunningly clear profile of economic change in the five East Asian capitalist countries. He concludes that economic policies have been "at least as important as cultural factors in explaining high growth." Lucian W. Pye briefly but tellingly isolates the political features characteristic of the five countries. Jan Swyngedouw offers a supple and stimulating assessment of Christianity's role. And Kyong-Dong Kim makes a notable case for "very unusual nonrational forces" having provided the impetus for South Korea's development heretofore.
The emergence of these developed countries in East Asia has muddied the theoretical waters by making it even more difficult to isolate features conducive to modernization. At the same time, their dazzling variety makes it less likely that analysts will alight on some superficial factor — such as Christianity, the white race, or democracy — and mistakenly pronounce that to be the key.
