Cultural Politics and Asian Values looks at the political, cultural and religious background of East and Southeast Asian societies and those of 'the West', with a view to seeing how they are affecting contemporary national and international politics: democratization, the international human rights discourse, NGOs and globalization.
The book surveys the political history and pre-history of the 'Asian values' debate, taking it up to the era of Megawati Sukarnoputri, Chen Shui-bian and Kim Dae-jung. In chapters on Confucianism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity and liberalism, Barr explores the histories and conceptual essences of the world religions involved in or affected by the debate.

Michael Barr is the author of Lee Kuan Yew: The Beliefs Behind the Man, which was based on his dissertation. He wrote Cultural Politics and Asian Values as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Centre for Community and Cross-Cultural Studies, Queensland University of Technology. In mid-2002 he took up an Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship in the History Department at the University of Queensland.