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Book Reviews Korea at the Turning Point: Innovation-Based Strategiesfor Development, ed. by Lewis M. Branscomb and YoungHwan Choi. Westport and London: Praeger, 1996. 285 pp., $65.00 cloth. South Korea's high rate of economic growth and industrialization over the past 30 years is not only a well-recognized but also a thoroughly studied phenomenon . While questions certainly remain as to just how South Korea achieved its economic "success," a more salient question is raised in this volume edited by Lewis Branscomb and Young-Hwan Choi: Will the successful policies of the past enable Korea to continue its growth unabated? Not surprisingly, this question is answered with an emphatic "no." Indeed, the contributors take as given that South Korea's public and private sectors will both need to master an entirely new development strategy based on innovations in science and technology (S&T). Korea, of course, is not alone in its dilemma. According to the authors, this is precisely the problem: virtually all industrialized economies have already been or will soon be compelled to take the same path of S&T-based innovation. National economies are destined to fall by the wayside if they fail to adopt strategies that strengthen intellectual and human capital, maximize the efficient use of economic and business capital, build an "innovation-friendly" culture, and thoroughly develop social capital (7-9). It is for this reason, as the title of the book unequivocally suggests, that South Korea is at a turning point in its brief history. Korean Studies, Volume 22. ©1998 by University of Hawai'i Press. All rights reserved. BOOK REVIEWS107 At a more mundane level, Korea at the Turning Point is primarily a book on public policy. Branscomb and Choi point out in their introduction that the book's overarching objective is to provide an assessment of the "assets, institutions , and policies that Korea will need to master [for] an innovation-based development strategy" (4). This is a straightforward objective and one that all the contributors to the volume (hailing from academia, government, and business ) address reasonably well. Structurally, the book is divided into five parts and is comprised of fifteen chapters. Part I, composed of four chapters, provides an overview of the post-World War II history of Korean technical and economic development , as well as an assessment of the challenges Korea currently faces, both domestically and internationally. The conclusion that can be drawn from these chapters is that "Korea is poised to compete on equal terms with the industrialized nations in a more open and competitive economy," but that such success can only be achieved through an "innovation-driven strategy based on a strong national scientific and technological capability and flexible, creative entrepreneurship " (9). Part II (chapters 6 through 8) follows along these lines, providing an evaluation of extant Korean scientific and technological resources for innovation from both a historical and contemporary perspective. The focus of this section, however, is on two key institutions in the development of S&T: universities (discussed in chapter 7) and public laboratories (chapter 8). Part III takes the focus off South Korea and places it on "other national models from which Korea might draw lessons for charting its own future" (10). Predictably, the first chapter in this section examines Japan, while the next looks at Taiwan—two countries with which Korea is often compared. The third chapter in this section, however, draws "lessons" from several less obvious models: Brazil, Switzerland, Sweden, and the Netherlands. Interestingly , Brazil is offered here as a example of what not to do, while the efforts of the three European countries, all small nations that have achieved a high degree of technological sophistication despite a lack of natural resources or a large domestic market (conditions similar to South Korea), are offered as alternative versions of the long road Korea must still travel before it can achieve enduring success in innovation-based development. Part IV, which brings the focus back to Korea, constructs an innovationbased model for Korean development. The model proposed revolves around the need for Korea to create stronger international links and a more mature infrastructure that can effectively utilize modern information technologies and communications networks. More specifically, chapter 12 discusses the role that the Korean...

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