Download or read book Local Cultures and the New Asia written by C.J.W.-L Wee and published by Flipside Digital Content Company Inc.. This book was released on 2003-08-01 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Southeast Asia, until the Asian economic crisis of 1997-2000, was a high economic growth area. However, despite the neo-liberal and globalizing logic of capitalism, local conditions and cultures determine that capitalism will spread in ways not entirely consonant with its Western origins. Capitalism is not a free-floating entity -- it is a socially embodied phenomenon that needs to function in various cultural contexts. Consequently, the tension between the universal status that some claim capitalism now occupies in the post-Cold War world and the particularities of the local cultures it enters should be of great concern.