"The end of the 20th century signals the making of a new relationship between Asia and the West. Looking beyond the colonial paradigm, the West seeks a new perspective on Asian cultures. Asians are involved in forging new questions about their identities. In the postmodern turn, the West reassesses the meaning of progress. The sudden prosperity in Asia has given progress a new lease on life, even as Asians are exposed to the uncertainties of the modern global economy.

What can we make of these developments as the cynicism of the postmodern West interfaces with the optimism of modernizing Asia?"--BOOK JACKET.

"The irony of this reversal suggests that some space has opened up between Asia and the West for the mutual receptivity of ideas and innovations. The Western rediscovery of fatalism, the Asian fascination with individualism, and a new understanding of emptiness in social theory characterize the mood of change at fin de siecle. The essays in this book point to that direction."--BOOK JACKET.