Poised to enter the twenty-first century, the Asia-Pacific region is rapidly emerging as a global economic and political powerhouse. Looking at both Southeast and East Asia, this illustrated volume stresses broad, cross-cutting themes of regional history, with an emphasis on the interactions between cultures and nations.

New areas receiving attention in this edition include the Japanese economic slowdown, Japan's attempts at political reform, China's current economic dilemmas and environmental crisis, the sustainability of East Asian economic growth, the North Korean crisis, and Asia-Pacific regionalism and global interactions.

The book also provides chronological updates for Cambodia, Vietnam, and Indonesia, and concludes with an examination of the key domestic and international issues facing the nations of Pacific Asia. The companion text to the PBS telecourse series, The Pacific Century, which first aired in the fall of 1992, the book also stands alone as an interdisciplinary introduction to Asia and the Pacific.