Overcoming the devastation of the Korean War, the Koreans have generated one of the world's new dynamic economies. Korea is the largest of East Asia's Four Little Dragons, and its soaring exports - from supertankers to microchips - are the visible signs of its energies. In the past four decades, the country's per capita GNP has increased from less than seventy dollars to more than six thousand dollars.To many foreigners looking at Korea from the outside, progress has been achieved at the cost of human rights through a succession of authoritarian governments. Yet in the wake of their high-growth economics, the Koreans are building the foundation for a strong new democracy. After years of a garrison-state government masquerading as a democracy, pressure from an expanding middle class has, over the past five years, pushed the Republic of Korea toward a real democratic society.This combination of stunning economic achievement and budding democracy marks Korea's emergence as one of the most vital countries of the Pacific Rim.Korea's Quiet Revolution traces the growth of the nation's fledgling democracy, from the first democratic pledges of President Roh Tae Woo in 1987 to the election campaigns of 1992, and sets Korea's political and economic progress against the background of its extraordinary history. Read Less