The Book of Aleph {Volume 6}

asia reborn
a continent rises from the ravages of colonialism & war to a new dynamism
prasenjit k. basu
This book is an Asian telling of the continent’s twentieth-century story. It
weaves together the stirring tales of how Asia’s nations overcame European
domination—and its legacies of war and famine—and began the long climb
to economic dynamism. Japan, having resisted colonial conquest through its
conservative revolution in 1868, played a vital role as leader of Asia’s rebirth.
The tide turned when Japan triumphed in its decade-long tussle with Russia
over Manchuria, the homeland of the non-Chinese dynasty that then ruled
China. Britain’s Curzon, seeking to nip nascent nationalism in the bud, quickly
partitioned India’s largest province—the first gambit in Britain’s long game of
divide et impera. The book examines why the most prosperous parts of Asia in
the second half of the twentieth century were precisely those that had been ruled
by Japan (even fleetingly), while those parts of Asia that were ruled longest by
the British were its poorest.
Prasenjit K. Basu lives and works in East Asia (Singapore and Kuala Lumpur)
with his wife, Aarti, and three children. He has spent the past quarter century
analysing Asia’s economies for various clients of Wharton Econometrics, UBS,
Credit Suisse First Boston, Khazanah Nasional, Daiwa Securities and Macquarie.
Apart from copious reports for his employers, Prasenjit has been a regular
commentator for the BBC, CNBC-Asia, Channel News Asia, NDTV Profit
and Zee Business, and has written op-eds for the Financial Times, International
Herald Tribune, Business Times (Singapore), The Statesman (India), India Today,
The Edge, The Star (Malaysia) and BBC Online, and co-authored a little book
called India as a New Global Leader (Foreign Policy Centre, 2005).
42
The Book of Aleph 43