Edited by Christoph Antons, Michael Blakeney and Christopher Heath. Kluwer Law International, 2004. 247pp. ISBN 9041122923 (HB).

In several major areas of international trade particularly software and technology transfer a harmonised regime of intellectual property law is a crucial prerequisite to success. Yet this legal concept appears to be extraordinarily difficult to establish on any agreed-upon basis among countries. And nowhere has the sought-for harmonisation proven more intractable than in the countries of the Asia Pacific region.

Intellectual Property Harmonisation in ASEAN and APEC investigates the complex issues that lie at the root of this major block to the unhampered global flow of commerce based on intangible assets. By highlighting the background of Asian legal systems, both in terms of culture and intellectual property systems, the authors suggest how the current obstacles towards greater harmonisation and integration may be overcome. Defining the accepted principles enshrined in TRIPS, the Paris Convention, and other international agreements, the presentation describes the relatively successful European experience and then goes on to develop strategic variations geared to relate more precisely to harmonisation, integration and co-operation in the East Asian region.

• Among the important elements of the problem (and its potential solutions) discussed in this book are the following:
• the strong influence of legal culture in the different Asian countries;
• the limits of IP harmonisation in Europe;
• the importance of understanding the political and cultural perceptions that prevail in the various Asian countries;
• the non-uniform approach of different Asian countries due in part to bilateral free trade agreements; and
• the experience of patent office cooperation and its potential as a model for smaller countries.

By Hyung-a Kim. RoutledgeCurzon, 2004. 256pp. ISBN 0415323290 (HB).

Based on personal interviews with the principal policy-makers of the 1970s, Korea's Development under Park Chung-Hee examines how the president sought to develop South Korea into an independent, autonomous sovereign state both economically and militarily. Kim provides a new narrative in the complex task of exploring the paradoxical nature and effects of Korea's rapid development which maintains that any judgement of Park must consider his achievements in the socio-economic, cultural and political context in which they took place. Aspects of Park's government analyzed include:

• his abhorrence of Korea's reliance on the US presence;
• the Korean model of state-guided industrialization;
• Park's rapid development strategy
• the role of the ruling elites;
• Park's clandestine nuclear development program;
• the heavy chemical industrialisation of the 1970s.

The prevailing popularity of Park in the eyes of the Korean public is significant and relevant to their acceptance of how their national development was achieved. This book tells that story while simultaneously recognizing the flaws in the process. With a great deal of material never before published, scholars of Korean politics and history at all levels will find this book a stimulating account of South Korea in the 1960s and 1970s.

By Lenore Lyons. Brill, 2004. 196+xii pp. ISBN 9004131396 (PB).

This book examines the contemporary feminist movement in Singapore through an in-depth case study of the locally-based Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE). It examines the meanings attached to feminist activism by AWARE members, including the use of the label “feminist” as a self-identifier by both individuals as well as the organisation as a whole. By exploring the range of activities that AWARE has been involved in since the mid-1980s, the text describes in detail the fraught relationship between feminism and the state in Singapore. The author uses the framework of transnational feminism to explore the ways in which gender, race/ethnicity, and class intersect in the construction of historically and culturally specific feminisms. The book will be of interest to scholars from a range of disciplines, including those working on gender studies, feminist history, and Southeast Asian studies.

This collection of papers emerged out of a CAPSTRANS-SEARC workshop on Migration, Ethnicity and Workforce Segmentation in the Asia-Pacific held at the University of Wollongong in 2004. The papers look at a range of issues from general surveys of the major problems, to case studies of Thai workers in Hong Kong, the plight of Indonesian women involved in the labour trade, and maids in Taiwan.

• Ken Young Globalisation and the changing management of migrating service workers in the Asia Pacific
• Adrian Vickers The country and the cities
• Kevin Hewison Thai migrant workers in Hong Kong
• Anne Loveband Positioning the product: Indonesian migrant women workers in Taiwan
• Kathleen Weekley Saving pennies for the State. A new role for Filipino migrant workers?
• Stephen Frost Building Hong Kong: Nepalese labour in the construction sector