Few Parts of the world have been so effective in carving the trends of human thought and action as the peripheral regions of the Eurasian land mass. These can be divided into two broad regions: the smaller crescent of European marine powers west of the Dardanelles, and the larger crescent of Asian peninsulas to the southeast. In spite of the earlier cultural and political development of a few areas in the latter, the former have outstripped them in the race and during the last four hundred years have controlled their resources and destiny. Recent events, however, indicate the beginnings of a reversal of this process. While European states seem to some extent to be descending the peak of political and economic power, the South Asian lands are desperately trying to ascend it. The centre of the stage is quickly changing from Europe to Asia.

The South Asian lands extend from the western Mediterranean to the eastern Pacific and cover 80 degrees of longitude and an average of 25 degrees of latitude. Comprising approximately one-tenth of the world's land area, they contain one-third of the world's population. Yet their combined national income is considerably less than that of the United States alone. The average individual monthly income in any of these lands is much less than the average individual daily income in the United States. This great discrepancy, rather than poverty, is the clue to South Asian behaviour and discontent. Poverty and degradation, which have become characteristic of the life of the Asian people, are usually blamed either entirely on the Western powers, or entirely on the Eastern people, depending upon whether one comes from the “subjugated” East or from the “exploiting” West. The very intensity of these two extreme accusations belies them; and truth, as always, is to be found somewhere between. It must be conceded that perhaps there would be fewer hospitals and schools, factories and railways, real and other assets, if the Western powers had not filled the political vacuum in the East; yet at the same time it is unjust to deny that many more of each of these improvements could have been made if political “morality” had been allowed to supersede the merely economic interests of the governing countries.