"We will live more and more in a world looking westward, and we stand poised on the verge of what will truly be a 'Pacific century, '" says Frank Gibney, the author of this masterly study of the history and political development of the Asia-Pacific countries. A definable image of the Pacific Basin would include, on the eastern shore of the ocean, the principal states of North America - Canada, the United States, and Mexico. On the western shore we have China, Japan. Russian Asia, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao, both South and North Korea, Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos included), and the ASEAN group - Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, and Brunei. Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific islands round out the list. Lavishly illustrated, with hundreds of black-and-white and color photographs, The Pacific Century traces the past one hundred and fifty years of the Pacific Basin region, from colonialism to. Nationalism, from military clashes to economic ones. The book also examines in depth the future of the Pacific Basin - its social problems, pollution, population growth, trade friction, and immigration - as well as the growing interdependence of the Asia-Pacific nations. As the author notes, "Our Pacific interconnections mark our common destiny."