ABSTRACT
The advance of industrialization was not high on the world's agenda after World War II compared to restoring war-torn economies and preventing another depression. The most dramatic new industrial revolution took shape starting in the 1960s and occurred in medium-sized nations and city-states on the Pacific Rim. The city-states of Hong Kong and Singapore rounded out the membership of the Pacific Rim's industrial club—along with Japan, of course, as senior member, which was now the world's second largest economy. Experts as well as popularizers tried to define a postindustrial revolution that would prove as sweeping as the industrial revolution less than two centuries before. Communications accelerated, commercial contacts moved to new levels, and industrial units operated worldwide in a process that came to be called "globalization". The industrial revolution, which had already changed the nature and extent of international contacts, now burst beyond the bounds of nations and even whole civilizations.
