Today's airport bookstore shelves are filled with new books about doing business in China,
but Joe Studwell's 2002 tome: China Dream The Quest for the Last Great Untapped Market on Earth, remains a market leader due to its clarity of research and insight as well as its unfussy style. Five years later,
Studwell is back with a new, potentially far more controversial title.
Asian Godfathers tells the inside story of the families that dominate the economies of Hong Kong and south-east Asia. With interests ranging from banking to property, shipping to sugar, and gambling to lumber, their power reaches into every corner of the continent, yet they remain unknown outside the region.
In this explosive new book, Studwell tells the stories of Asia's richest and most powerful kingpins, including Hong Kong's Li Ka-shing, Macau's casino tycoon Stanley Ho, Malaysia's Lim Goh Tong, creator of the vast Genting Highlands casino; and The Philippines' Lucio Tan, a tobacco billionaire who started his career as a janitor.
Through the hidden lives of these mysterious and fascinating men, Studwell explores the broader economic and political issues facing a region of 500 million people: how the Asian tycoons took such a strong hold over their local economies, how they survived the Asian financial crisis that began in 1997, and what their endurance teaches us about the real state of the countries they live in.
Asian Godfathers (ISBN 1861977018), by Joe Studwell, is published in paperback by Profile Books, www.profilebooks.co.uk
Last update : Saturday, 04 August 2007
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(0 vote)
A good read
By: Paul Davis (Guest) on 24-07-2007 18:11