ABSTRACT
In taking a broad intellectual view, this book has embraced the Asian urban landscape as a series of multifarious confluences – geographic, historic and political – extending from the deserts of the Persian Gulf region to the Pearl River Delta. As the chapters demonstrate, these confluences have deep roots that are embedded in ancient and sophisticated civilizations. They have undergone transitions through multiple oppressive colonizations, thus affirming their incredible ability to assimilate foreign concepts while asserting their own. And they have seen dramatic political transformations wherein autocratic rule was replaced by self-governance and the evolution of twentieth and twenty-first century cities as large, complex and rapidly changing entities.
