This a book about a small group of very rich men the south-east Asian billionaires who, in the post-Second World War era, came to dominate the domestic economies of their region. For the purposes of what follows, south-east Asia is defined as the five original members of the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines plus Hong Kong, a place that traditionally swivels on an axis that allows it to be part of'greater China' and south-east Asia as self-interest dictates. These six entites are the economic story of their region, the south-eastern contributors to what the World Bank dubbed in 1993 the East Asian miracle. Five other states Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar (Burma) andd Brunei descrebe themselves as south-east Asian, but they return a combined economic product little more than half that of Singapore (with a population of four million people) and are referred to only in passing?