ABSTRACT
Prediction, the late Yogi Berra may have said, is difficult, especially when it is about the future. “Asia” is an arbitrary designation of part of a huge land mass separated from what we call Europe only by a relatively unimpressive mountain range (the Urals) and a narrow oceanic channel (the Bosphorus) (and separated from what we call Africa by an even smaller, artificial channel: the Suez Canal). This land mass has neither ethnic, linguistic, cultural, nor economic unity; Asian societies arguably differ from one another as much as any one of them differs from any particular society elsewhere. Perhaps the concept, as it is used today, is most easily conceived in geopolitical terms: It was the home of several highly developed ancient civilizations that became subject, directly or indirectly, to the Western European “world conquest” from (roughly) 1750 to 1900. And certain Asians, or at least certain Asian elites, do identify themselves with the continent, more in distinction from and political solidarity against Europeans and Americans rather than from any common heritage. 1
