The Transition in Open Dualistic Economies. By Douglas Paauw and John Fei. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1973. 306 pp.Price! 12.50

This book is concerned with a special type of less developedcountries having open dualistic economies. It deals with transitiongrowth, the postwar era of 1950—1970, which is a relatively shortperiod, sandwiched between the two long epochs of colonial growth andmodern economic growth. The hallmark of the colonial epoch is theimposition of foreign political control on the agrarian economy of thecolony to result in a heavy reliance upon primary product exports. Thenon-agricultural sector and the com¬mercialized agricultural sector forman enclave which is "involved in a trian¬gular pattern of resourceutilization with the foreign sector." The economic goal of colonialismis to extract from the colony the maximum export surplus. This featureof colonial growth is vital to the examination of the transition growthprocess because the subsequent experience of the colony after politicalindependence depends on how these export profits are employed. The mainpoint of the book is that the use of export profits to alter theeconomic structure differs among countries, and the authors identify twotypes of experience. The first is economic nationalism, under which thetrade- related profits are utilized for a thorough change in theproduction and trade patterns. The second is neocolonialism in which, bycontrast, the trade- related profits are employed to strengthen andperpetuate the colonial pattern of growth. Taiwan and the Philippinesare cited as examples of economic nationalist transition growth whileMalaysia and Thailand are examples of the neocolonial pattern of growth.