ABSTRACT
How is it that in 1492 what were then called the East Indies were lands of such fabled wealth and riches that they could lure Christopher Columbus and his intrepid crew to embark on a dangerous and uncertain voyage to find them, and yet, by 1992, the same Indies – now known as South and Southeast Asia – could be synonymous with poverty and squalor? How did they go in just five centuries – the blink of an eye in terms of human time on this planet – from spaces of wealth and desire in the western imagination to a benighted third world? Why, when historical evidence shows various parts and regions of the known world were relatively equal in terms of standards of living for a
long period of time, do we today inhabit a planet sharply bifurcated in terms of the quality of life?
