In recent years the economies of eastern Asia have virtually exploded. What started in Japan and Taiwan after World War II and continued in Hong Kong and Korea, has now touched Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, China, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Traditional societies and ways of life exist side by side with, or are giving way to, electronic and manufacturing productivity and consumerism on a scale that is nothing less than a revolution. While this transformation has been taking place, Hiroji Kubota has been criss-crossing the area for the past three years making extraordinary pictures of the people and places in change.

Kubota's keen eye and thorough understanding of the area come together in this volume of superb photographs and provocative captions which, like those of his acclaimed China volume, entertain and educate us at the same time.