This book explores the interface between modernity and tradition in selected societies in Taiwan, mainland China and Vietnam. The chapters question to what extent traditions are themselves exploiting modernity in creative ways, in the interests of their own further developments.
Why is it that Japan, with few natural resources, has become one of the world's leading economies but not Latin America, which is so rich in natural resources? This anthropological essay questions the Euro-centric notion of modernity and modernization and argues that Latin America has to find its own form of modernity.
