Building Social Capital in Thailand: Fibers, Finance, and Infrastructure by Danny UngerReview by: Lucian W. PyeForeign Affairs, Vol. 78, No. 3 (May - Jun., 1999), p. 150Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20049336 .

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Recent Books

Can Asians Think?'by kishore

mahbubani. Singapore: Times

Books International, 1998,192 pp.

$9.95 (paper). Veteran diplomat Kishore Mahbubani,

Singapore's point man in the "Asian values"

debate, is an exceptionally lively and

provocative polemicist. Sadly, this collection

of essays, written during the exhilarating

days of the Asian "miracle," is now a

somewhat embarrassing read as Asian

nations struggle amid economic wreckage. Even more chastening is the way he

chooses to advance his case. Rather

than making a substantive argument

for Asian economic success, he insists

that the West is in decline. Most Americans

will readily admit that the United States has numerous problems, but it seems a

bit much to crudely call them "fatal flaws"?Mahbubani's favorite charac

terization. As he would have it, Japan's

economy has already surpassed that of

the United States, with Chinas running a

close third. True, the reader can sympathize with Mahbubani's desire to toot the horn

of Asian economic success at a time when

American triumphalism after the Cold

War had become a bit grating for the rest of the world. But the challenge of

understanding the modernization of

Asian cultures is far too important to

be treated as a debaters' game.

Building Social Capital in Thailand:

Fibers, Finance, and Infrastructure, by

Danny UNGER. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1998, 248

pp. $59.95 (paper, $19.95). This book examines one of the hottest

ideas in political science today: "social

capital," or the social prerequisites for

building democracy. Unger gives the

concept another dimension by suggesting that it also explains economic development: a high level of social capital facilitates the formation of social networks that advance

banking and commerce. In seeking to

explain Thailand's economic "miracle" in

the 1980s, Unger finds his answer in the

cultural differences between the Thais

and Chinese. The relatively easy-going Thai culture produced officials who were

untroubled about giving free reign to the

compulsively driven Chinese. In turn,

the Chinese, culturally predisposed toward

building social networks, are able to

cultivate business contacts and thereby find investment opportunities. Unger does

not go further to explore how the same

reliance on networking also led to crony

capitalism and economic disaster, and his

prose is dense. Nevertheless, his insights and analysis remain impressive. This is

cultural analysis at its best, illuminating how two different sets of Asian values

converged to produce economic prosperity.

A Million Truths: A Decade in China, by linda jakobson. New York: M.

Evans, 1998, 224 pp. $24.95. Street Life China, edited by michael

Robert DUTTON. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1999,320

pp. $54.95 (paper, $19.95). What is life like today for the ordinary

Chinese? China's opening to the outside

world has greatly improved Western

understanding of the country's political and economic developments, but its daily life remains largely unexamined by out

siders. These two books seek to provide

answers, though by quite different methods. Jakobson personally immersed

herself in Chinese social life, first as a

student, then as a teacher, and finally as a

[150] FOREIGN AFFAIRS-Volume 78 No. 3

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