The world economy is spinning and shaking in seemingly unpredictable directions at increasing velocity. The United States eschews trade agreements that it once espoused, England turns inward, Japan loses another decade. Economic accommodation between the United States and China is now more contentious as each country fears the motives of the other while seeking influence elsewhere. Gone, it seems, are the examples of orderly ecopolitical development that Japan once symbolized and that observers anticipated that China and India would emulate. Indeed, instead of emulation, emerging nations now reject the insularity of 1960s Japan as a quaint anachronism and turn instead to new strategies that welcome outside innovation and investment, all the while promoting national growth through selective networks. How, then, do social theories of the past help us understand these new realities of economic development?

Into this milieu steps Kathryn C. Ibata-Arens, who in her new book Beyond Technonationalism proposes a bold new conceptual framework of networked technonationalism. Leveraging her incisive insights and well-researched data, Ibata-Arens delves into the policies and economic backgrounds of Japan, China, India, and Singapore as cases of biotechnology development. She proposes that neither closed insular networks nor open competitive borders are decisive po