BOOK REVIEW S3 only industrialized country in the world at that time and there was little need for protecting the home market." However, the increasing industrialization of Europe by the close of the nineteenth cen tury and the invasion of the European markets by cheap American corn led to protectionist tendencies on the continent,. and in Britain tariff reforms and restrictive measure were adopted to safeguard British manufactures against foreign competition. Protectionism continued in varying degrees right upto the Second World War since when ^the countries of western Europe have increasingly come to realize the economic and other advantages of removing the barriers between them and of making a joint approach to common problems." He then briefly surveys the advent of various regional economic communities such as the Organization for European Economic Co opera-tion (OEEG), Benelux Economic Union, European Free trade Association (EFTA) the European Common Market (ECM), Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON), Latin American Free Trade Association (LAFTA) and so on. Trade Patterns Chapter 2 surveys the Asian scene. There is classification of principal exports and imports of member countries and it is observed, ^No country seems to be a major exporter of more than three or four products in the region nor does any one single commodity account for major export earnings in more than three or four countries." From this it is argued th-at the great diversity in natural resources and agricultural production in this region ^may have contributed towards the relatively higher percentage of intra-regional trade in the ESGAP region as compared with the other developing regions of the world." It is at the same tim^ also observed that ce the expansion of the ESCAP region's infra-regional trade was mainly due to trade expansion between the developing and developed ESCAP countries, and not because of trade expansion among the developing ESCAP countries." In chapter 3 we are provided with ^a detailed economic survey of the ESCAP region member countries" a documentation of certain key indices such as gross national product, gross domestic product, per capita income, export performance, industrial output, agricultural production (separately for principal crops) population and a paragraph or two on import policy and tariff systems in each of the thirty-one countries and a small section at the end on intra-regional investments, revenue from tax and import duty. This survey is supposed to highlight ^the area of economic cooperation and complementarity" In the following chapter we come across natural and man-made barriers that separate the economies of ESGAP members. Because of the imperative need for revenues to meet investment demands of their development plans, customs duties occupy an important place (^and are