The dynastic tradition lives on in industrial Korea. No organization exemplifies this more so than the Hyundai group, founded by Chung Ju Yung after World War II and now one of the world's largest, most diversified mercantile empires. In this, the first book ever to focus on a single Korean chaebol or business conglomerate, Donald Kirk examines the rise of Hyundai, Chung's economic and political power - and the division of the spoils among his large family.

Here is a tale of one man's vision, of a nation's struggle for greatness, of political and personal intrigue - and, not least, of the clash between Confucian and Western cultures that has become a motif of the explosive growth of the Pacific rim economies.