Synopses & Reviews
The Pacific Ocean covers one-third of the world's surface and around it lives one-third of the world's population. Its 70 million square miles of water spill onto the shores of a richly contrasting assortment of countries. Some are global giants Russia, China, Japan, and the United States. Others, such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Chile, and Canada, are becoming increasingly important and influential. The coastline that unites them is now more than just a physical entity. It is a political and economic state of mind, called, for want of something more poetic, the Pacific Rim.
Experts predict that the Pacific Rim will be the powerhouse of the twenty-first century. Commentators point to the final decline of the Mediterranean-Atlantic axis which has dominated the world these past two thousand years. The future, we are told, belongs to the other side of the earth. The Pacific century is about to begin.
Many times, over the last couple of years, I have found myself nodding in agreement with these sage judgements without being at all sure what I was nodding about. Where exactly is the Pacific Rim everyone talks about with such authority? Which countries does it include? What are the people like in these countries? Do they share a sense of the destiny so many think likes ahead of them? I felt it was time to stop nodding and to learn something....
from the introduction
Synopsis
Actor Michael Palin steps away from the big screen for a while to write an adventure about the exploration of the diverse cultures and varied landscape surrounging a 20,000-mile stretch of the Pacific Rim.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Acknowledgements
Author's Route
Alaska, USA
Russia
Japan
Korea
China
Vietnam
Philippines
Malaysia
Indonesia
Australia
New Zealand
Chile
Bolivia
Peru
Colombia
Mexico
USA
Canada
Alaska, USA