Rating: 
Summary: Couldn't make it through Nicholas's fear mongering
Review: A brilliant book this is, & it can only come from the Pulitzer Prize winner husband & wife team, who brought us "China Wakes" few years back. The book digs deep, peeling the onion into the inner core, & evaluating the status of Asia in the world. I find it wonderful to read as this is not a thesis per say, but a stupendous effort of journalism. The writers went boldly to many places searching for answers by interviewing the locals or by observing. Pity, elation, helplessness, frustration, hope, powerlessness, ludicrousness are some of the emotions that overwhelmed me as I rummaged through the book. To summarise the book simply, don't underestimate Asia because if you do, you do it at your own peril as been written by the authors. By having flexibility, social stability, greed, willingness to embrace other cultures, the sky or shall I say, the space is the limit for Asia. Nobody knows for certain if America would be superseded by Asia but if it gets too complacent, & if Asia maintains its present momentum, a calculated guess is that Asia would might just be possible to once again rule the world, or better known as the "Middle Kingdom"! Highly recommended
Rating: 
Summary: The sequel is never as good as the original
Review: I think the authors have gone overboard in their rosy opinions. But I do recommend this book highly because they did their homework by interviewing lots of people on the ground in China. Their resumes are also sterling: Kristof is a NY Times editor, Harvard grad with a first-class honors from Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar, and his wife, the co-author, is a Harvard MBA who shared a Pulitzer Prize with him for their China reporting. Some credentials.
Rating: 
Summary: Slightly Over-optimistic
Review: I think the authors have gone overboard in their rosy opinions. But I do recommend this book highly because they did their homework by interviewing lots of people on the ground in China. Their resumes are also sterling: Kristof is a NY Times editor, Harvard grad with a first-class honors in Law from Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar, and his wife, the co-author, is a Harvard MBA who shared a Pulitzer Prize with him for their China reporting. Some credentials.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Survey of Asia
Review: Mr. Kristoff and Ms. WuDunn have written a very interesting and engaging book about one of the most important areas of the world. The strength and weakness of the book derives from the authors' close contact with average people in the areas the write about. This puts a wonderfully human face on an area that for too many Americans becomes a faceless mass of statistics. But sometimes I think the authors are too quick to jump from anecdote to larger societal truth.I found some of the early history of the region especially fascinating having never been exposed to that before. Like the authors, I spent time afterward thinking about what might have been had China not destroyed its 15th century navy. It is a useful counterpoint to the common argument that the triumph of the West over the past several centuries was inevitable. The book also provides many good insights into Asia's potential for the future. I was also impressed that the authors seemed very cognizant of the limits of their predictive powers and often pointed the wide variety of things that could happen to change their overall outlook. I would recommend this book for all but the most serious scholars of Asia.
Rating:
Summary: A Big Picture of a Big Place
Review: Overall, an solid survey of an Asia in flux both from a general and country-specific perspective. Engrossing narratives combined with facts and figures produce a survey of Asia that is both informative and easily read. The one (significant) caveat I have results from the no-so-subtle editorializing that both Kristof and Wudunn bring to their analysis. As a piece of social science work one could expect an explicit statement of one's own ethical and normative perspective. But this is not a social science work and so each chapter contains at least one impressionistic (and frequently irritating) generalization about some aspect of Asia or Asians that tries to slide by as an objective truth. I wish the authors had simply been a little more forthcoming about thier own analytical viewpoints during the introduction. However, that can be overlooked in light of the otherwise solid work. I recommend it with only this one qualification.
Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended!
Review: Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporters Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn spent 14 years covering Asia. Their talents, insight and experience shine in this informative and provocative look at the region's economic rise and diverse cultures. The authors brilliantly weave economic, political and historical data into chapters that tell the stories of the struggles and triumphs of ordinary people from all walks of life. From their understanding of Asian economies to their perceptions about the ambitions, emotions and determination that shape individual lives, the authors create a verbal photo album of Asian culture. We [...] highly recommend this beautifully written page-turner to all readers.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent warts-and-all view of a changing Asia
Review: The authors write of their experiences and observations in a number of Asian countries. Their story is greatly helped by conversations with people from all walks of life, from world leaders to the desperately poor. Their story is very well told, and is consistent with my experiences in Asia. Anyone who aspiring to "think globally and act locally" needs to read this book. Opponents of globalization are especially advised to read this book -- the world looks a lot different on the ground in parts of Asia than it does from the comfort of a North American or Western European armchair. High-minded ideals can cause a lot of real damage to the poorest of the poor, to those in most need of help.
Rating:
Summary: Travelogue full of desultory ideas
Review: The main themes of this book are Asian economic crisis(1997-) and prospect for Asian countries' future. Though it is very helpful to understanding Asian economic crisis, the prospect for Asia's future borders on a fairy tale, which I don't believe.
And I found a few factual errors. In page 137, South Korea is describe as importing more than exporting. But in reality, South Korea is exporting more than she is importing. In page 155-156, Sheryl WuDunn said Russian(Ukraine) serfs had been freed by law in 1848. If my memory is correct, Russian emancipation was in 1842(voluntary) and 1861(mandatory). According to page 246, South Korean president Kim Dae Jung visited Japan in 1998 and announced that he was ending the ban on imports from Japan. This gives false impression that all Japanese products had been banned until 1998. The ban was only about Japanese cultural products like movies. I, as South Korean man, am now able to see Japanese movies since the ban was lifted.
Rating:
Summary: Demography is Destiny
Review: This is the main message of the book. I just have two comments and a reflection. There are surprising examples of how Japan is willing to spend huge amounts of money to keep services in sparsely populated rural areas. The emphasis seems to be more on how soft-hearted the Japanese are to do this than on how creating employment and contracts benefits various political constituencies. The authors predict that China will eventually grant independence to Tibet, but I don't see why the government would agree, especially if they can bring in enough Han Chinese. I haven't read their earlier book, _China Wakes_, but there isn't enough information in _Thunder_ to support their opinion. If present trends persist, Asia will have the majority of the world's economic activity in a few decades, in addition to the majority of its population. The discussion of these trends in the first chapter made me think that the United States has a responsibility to encourage economic growth in Latin America so that there can be economically vibrant multiracial societies throughout the Americas to offer the world an alternative to the nationalism that might develop in the more homogeneous East Asian countries.
Rating:
Summary: Demography is Destiny
Review: This is the main message of the book. I just have two comments and a reflection. There are surprising examples of how Japan is willing to spend huge amounts of money to keep services in sparsely populated rural areas. The emphasis seems to be more on how soft-hearted the Japanese are to do this than on how creating employment and contracts benefits various political constituencies. The authors predict that China will eventually grant independence to Tibet, but I don't see why the government would agree, especially if they can bring in enough Han Chinese. I haven't read their earlier book, _China Wakes_, but there isn't enough information in _Thunder_ to support their opinion. If present trends persist, Asia will have the majority of the world's economic activity in a few decades, in addition to the majority of its population. The discussion of these trends in the first chapter made me think that the United States has a responsibility to encourage economic growth in Latin America so that there can be economically vibrant multiracial societies throughout the Americas to offer the world an alternative to the nationalism that might develop in the more homogeneous East Asian countries.
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