This is the first textbook survey of the pivotal position occupied by
Southeast Asia in both the wider Asian and international economy.
Professor Chris Dixon demonstrates how Southeast Asia's role has
undergone frequent and profound change as a result of the successive
emergence and dominance of mercantile, industrial and finance capital.
He shows how the region has developed as a supplier of luxury products,
such as spices; as a producer of bulk primary products; and how, since
the 1960s, it has become a major recipient of investment and a favored
location for labor-intensive manufacturing operations. The author
examines how this progressive integration of South East Asia in the
world economy has established the dominance of a small number of core
areas and, in a concluding chapter, he explores the way in which the
restructuring of the world economy in the 1980s has opened Southeast
Asia to a new cycle of capitalist penetration.