Choice Review

South Korea and the Philippines are not often compared, given the differences in their colonial experiences, societies, external threats, and relationships with the US. However, Kang draws a compelling portrait of their similarity with respect to the consequential role of money politics and its impact on economic development. He asks why rapid growth occurred early in South Korea and only recently in the Philippines, answering: "In Korea the mutual hostage balance kept corruption from swamping growth, whereas in the Philippines bandwagoning never allowed for the domestic stability that permits long-term growth." Yet the balance producing South Korea's stellar economic performance disintegrated in the 1980s-90s, leading to near collapse at the onset of the Asian flu in 1997. Meanwhile, the Philippines, failing economically under the predatory policies of the Marcos regime, weathered economic storms in the late 1990s better than most Asian states. Kang's approach fits within the genre of studies on developmental states, and most closely complements Alice Amsden's Asia's Next Giant (CH, Feb'90). But it reaches beyond this analysis and sets a new research course by providing political explanations for both successes and failures of the developmental state. Recommended for general readers and upper-division undergraduates and above. G. A. McBeath University of Alaska Fairbanks